USA > Washington > Spokane County > Spokane > Spokane and the Spokane country : pictorial and biographical : deluxe supplement, Volume II > Part 8
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The pleasant home life of Mr. Scott had its inception in his mar- riage on the 26th of December, 1901, in Spokane, to Mrs. Nette E. Lewis, a daughter of Ferdinand J. A. and Anna W. (Abel) Martin, pioneer residents of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Mr. and Mrs. Scott have many friends in this city and the hospitality of a large number of Spokane's attractive homes is extended to them. In his political views Mr. Scott is a republican interested in the success and growth of the party which he has represented as a delegate in several state con- ventions and was also named as alternate to one of the national conven- tions. He is well fitted for leadership and his work has been an ef- fective force for progress in party ranks. Moreover, his district, ap- preciative of his worth, elected him representative to the legislature in 1905 and again to the state senate in 1907, and while numbered among Washington's lawmakers he gave most careful consideration to each question which came up for settlement, voting with due re- gard for the best interests of the commonwealth at large. He is also deeply interested in the welfare and upbuilding of Spokane, which has prompted his cooperation in the work of the Chamber of Com- merce, in which he holds membership. He is a Royal Arch Mason, a member of the Woodmen of the World and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, having filled all of the offices in the local lodge of the latter. He is likewise a life member of the Spokane Athletic Club and is qualified to become a member of the Sons of the American Revolution. Mr. Scott is widely known in this city, where he has made his home for almost a quarter of a century, taking active and helpful interest in everything pertaining to its substantial upbuild- ing and improvement.
Wlilliam J. Sutton
ILLIAM J. SUTTON, prominently known in con- W nection with financial interests in eastern Washing- ton as president of the Security National Bank of Cheney, has reached his present enviable position through indefatigable energy, keen discrimination and unfaltering enterprise. Moreover, realizing that real estate is the safest of all investments, he has made extensive pur- chases of land near Cheney and in Adams county. In other connec- tions, too, he has figured prominently as a leading individual and progressive citizen, deserving especial credit for his efforts in behalf of education, the Cheney Normal School largely owing its existence to his self-sacrificing efforts and his high ideals along educational lines.
Mr. Sutton is a native of Lapeer county, Michigan, born Septem- ber 29, 1865. His parents, Levi L., and Sarah J. (Goodenough) Sutton, were pioneer residents of the Wolverine state. He pursued his education in the public schools of Michigan and in the Fenton Normal School, from which he was graduated with the class of 1886. Coming west in 1887, he located in Cheney and organized its first graded public school. For three years he devoted his time and ef- forts untiringly to systematizing the work and developing the in- terests of the public school system here and in 1890, when the Cheney Normal School was established, he was chosen vice principal and professor of mathematics, continuing to serve in the dual position for a year and a half. On the expiration of that period he was made principal and so continued until 1897. During that time the main building was erected, the money for which was largely acquired through the untiring efforts of Professor Sutton. After the old normal school building was destroyed by fire the maintenance appro- priation passed by the legislature was vetoed but Professor Sutton continued to conduct the school without an appropriation fund. In this way he became able to obtain the money for a new building. His services in the educational field have been of inestimable value in the intellectual progress of this section and have constituted an important element in upbuilding the high standards of the state in this connection.
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William J. Sutton
In 1897, however, Professor Sutton severed his identification with educational interests as an active factor and turned his attention to agricultural and banking interests, giving his time and energies throughout the intervening period of fifteen years to his personal interests.
On the 10th of March, 1897, Mr. Sutton was united in marriage to Miss Nellie G. Hutchinson, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. David Hutchinson, of Auburn, New York. Her parents were early set- tlers of the Empire state and Mrs. Sutton is a graduate of the State Normal School at Oswego, New York. Mr. Sutton is the present junior grand warden of the grand lodge of Masons in the state. He belongs also to the Odd Fellows and to the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. Mr. and Mrs. Sutton attend the Congregational church and are prominent socially, having an extensive circle of warm friends not only in Cheney but throughout the district in which they have long resided. In all those ventures which contribute most to the upbuilding and progress of a community Mr. Sutton has been deeply interested and his labors have been fruitful of good results. The simple weight of his character and ability has carried him into important relations and he has that confidence and courage that come of conscious personal ability, right conception of things and an habitual regard for what is best in the exercise of human activities.
Jasi Glumingbang
James Calbin Cunningham
AMES CALVIN CUNNINGHAM was one of the first to engage in practical irrigation in the Spokane valley and in this as in other fields of labor he has contributed in large measure to the substantial de- velopment and progress of this section of the coun- try. His name has figured prominently in financial circles for a long period and he is now vice president and manager of what was originally the Union Trust & Savings Bank of Spokane and is now the Union Trust & Savings Bank. He was born in Prince Edward county, Ontario, Canada, on the 10th of March, 1864, a son of James Robert Cunningham. The public schools of his native land afforded him his early educational privileges and following the re- moval of the family to South Dakota in 1881 he attended the Dakota Agricultural College of Brookings. In the meantime, however, he had made his initial step in the business world as an employe in a mer- cantile house in Chicago and while pursuing his college course his summer months were devoted to teaching, examination having won for him a first-grade certificate. Thinking to take up the profession of law as a life work he became a student in the office and under the direction of Judge Glass, of Watertown, South Dakota, and while thus studying he also occupied a position in the county treasurer's office of Hamlin county. J
Attracted by the rapidly growing west, Mr. Cunningham came to Spokane in 1889 and opened a real-estate and insurance office. In that field he gradually worked his way upward, becoming recognized as one of the leading insurance men of the northwest. From 1897 until 1906 he acted as special agent and adjuster for several Ameri- can fire insurance companies, his territory including the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah and Montana. Throughout that period he traveled extensively in these states and it would be difficult to find one more familiar with the country, its present conditions and its future possibilities than he. Seeing opportunity for judicious in- vestments he became interested in farm lands in eastern Washing- ton and northern Idaho and in order to handle his property to better advantage organized a company in 1906 which has since operated
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under the name of the Cunningham Realty Company. He took up the study of irrigation and was one of the first to introduce practical irrigating methods into the Spokane valley. He saw the rich resources of the country and became a most active factor in the development of the northwest, his labors proving of great benefit to the district as well as a source of substantial revenue to himself. In 1903 he or- ganized the Valley Improvement Company which purchased and put under irrigation large tracts of land in the Spokane valley. On the organization of the company Mr. Cunningham became its president and still continues as its chief executive officer. His labors in that field were so successful that he further extended his efforts by pur- chasing the controlling interest in and reorganizing the Spokane Val- ley Land & Water Company in 1904. As its president he remained at the head of its affairs for some time but eventually disposed of his interests to D. C. Corbin. He had continued in the insurance field until 1906, when he severed all connection with that business and as- sisted in organizing the Union Trust Company of Spokane (later the Union Trust & Savings Bank), of which he was elected secretary- treasurer and manager. He served in that capacity for five years and at the annual meeting in 1912 he was elected vice president and manager of the bank and a member of the executive committee. Thus he is closely associated with the financial interests of the city. In 1905 he had established the Trustee Company of Spokane and was its presi- dent until he took up the duties of the Union Trust Company. His connection with the former concern still continues in the capacity of director. In 1907 he became the organizer of the Spokane Title Com- pany, of which he has continuously served as president. His financial activities have not been confined to Spokane for he became one of the promoters of the Connell National Bank of Connell, Washington, and was equally instrumental in organizing the Okanogan State Bank of Riverside, Washington, of both of which he is still a director. He has been a director of the Fidelity National Bank of Spokane for a number of years and is a stockholder of the Union Securities Com- pany of this city and in the Reardan Exchange Bank of Reardan, Washington. He finds ready solution for intricate financial prob- lems and his ability to coordinate forces into a unified and harmonious whole has been one of the potent elements in his success.
Pleasantly situated in his home life, Mr. Cunningham was married in Brookings, South Dakota, in 1889, to Miss Sarah A. Haber, a daughter of Jacob Haber, and unto them have been born five children but the eldest, Ila W., died in July, 1908, at the age of eighteen years,
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and a little daughter died in infancy. Those still living are James Russel, Dorothy Helen and Robert Wesley.
Mr. Cunningham and his family attend the First Methodist Epis- copal church, in which he has served as secretary of the board of trus- tees for sixteen years. He is also one of the trustees of the Deaconess Pension Fund Society, a national organization established in July, 1909. He cooperates in various projects for the growth of the church and the expansion of its work and in this as in business fields his labors are practical and resultant. He became one of the organizers and procured the charter for the Maria Beard Deaconess Home and Hos- pital and is president of its board of trustees. His hearty sympathy with all projects and measures for the moral uplift of mankind has been manifest in many tangible ways. He became one of the foun- ders of the Young Men's Christian Association, assisted in erecting its building in Spokane, is now serving on its board of directors and is chairman of its finance committee. He has been equally loyal to the cause of public education and served for a number of years on the school board of Spokane.
During his early residence in Washington Mr. Cunningham was a member of the Washington National Guard, and during the Span- ish-American war he reenlisted as a member of Company L of the United States Volunteers. His fraternal relations are with Imperial Lodge, No. 134, I. O. O. F .; Oriental Lodge, No. 74, F. & A. M., in which he holds a life membership; Spokane Chapter, No. 2, R. A. M .; Cataract Commandery, No. 3, K. T .; Oriental Consistory, No. 2; and El Katif Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He is also a member of the Spokane University and Country Clubs. In 1910 he was elected one of the trustees of the Spokane Interstate Fair and at all times he readily cooperates in the projects for the development and. upbuilding of the northwest. He enters into any work with con- tagious enthusiasm and zeal and never stops short of the successful accomplishment of his object. In no sense a man in public life, he has nevertheless exerted an immeasurable influence on the city of his resi- dence; in business circles as a financier and promoter of extensive in- dustrial, commercial and financial interests; in social circles by reason of his charming personality and unfeigned cordiality; in citizenship by reason of his public-spirited devotion to the general good as well as his comprehensive understanding of the questions affecting state and national welfare; and in those departments of activity which ameliorate hard conditions of life for the unfortunate by his benevo- lence and his liberality.
JaI. D. Valentine, M. D.
3R. W. D. VALENTINE is the oldest continuous box- D holder in the Spokane postoffice, which indicates his connection with the city from early pioneer times, his residence here dating from 1884. While he has long stood in the front rank of his profession he has also become a prominent factor in mining circles and like many of the residents of the northwest has won substantial and grati- fying success in developing the rich mineral resources of the country.
He was born in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, January 22, 1850, and when only three years of age was taken by his parents to Ogle county, Illinois. He was graduated from the Rock River College in 1870 and continued his studies in the Northwestern University at Evan- ston, Illinois, where he won a degree in 1872, further supplementing his more specifically literary knowledge by a year's study in the Illi- nois State University, from which he was graduated in 1873. His preparation for the practice of medicine was made in the Chicago Medical College and in the Pulte Medical College of Cincinnati, completing his course in the former in 1875 and in the latter in 1877. He next entered the Physio-Medical Institute in Cincinnati and was graduated in 1880. While studying medicine he engaged in teaching for a time and was prominent among its educators who raised the standard of scholarship in Ogle county until the schools of that county won the gold medal at the Centennial Exposition of 1876.
Dr. Valentine located for practice in Polo, Illinois, where he re- mained for two years, and then removed to Lanark, that state, where he resided until 1884. At that time he came to Spokane and in the intervening years has ever maintained a foremost position in the ranks of the medical profession in this city. He was on the high road to prosperity when the fire of 1889 occurred, bringing to him heavy losses. He worked untiringly and heroically to save property belong- ing to several of his neighbors and then finally turned to save his own, carrying out some of his office effects which, however, were burned in the street. He was at length compelled to flee from his office and on reaching the foot of the stairs found the air full of fire, and as he crossed the street was badly burned, besides losing a very valuable
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package of money and securities. A man who crossed just ahead of him was suffocated in the street. Such was the effect of this fiery ordeal upon the Doctor's lungs and upon the mucus lining of his stomach that for three years he was disqualified for active business but finally recovered and resumed practice. He has kept pace with the march of improvement that has brought the medical profession to its present high standard of knowledge and efficiency. His reading has been broad and his investigations and research have placed him with those who speak authoritatively upon various branches of the medical science. Moreover, his duties have always been performed with a sense of conscientious obligation that has won the confidence and trust of his patrons. Dr. Valentine has also become widely known in connection with mining interests. For several years he was the vice president of the Federal Mining & Smelting Company and is now a stockholder in various other good propositions including the Elk City Mining Company, the Togo Mining Company and the United Copper Mining & Smelting Company, of all of which he is a director. He is deserving of the prominence and success that have come to him not only by reason of his ability in his profession but also because he has proven a valuable factor in many of the activities which have counted as of most worth in the upbuilding of the city.
On the 26th of June, 1909, Dr. Valentine was united in marriage to Mrs. Anna M. Hayes, who was also one of the pioneer residents of Spokane. He belongs to the Vincent Methodist Episcopal church and is a prominent member of Samaritan Lodge, No. 52, I. O. O. F. In fact he has taken the various degrees in Odd Fellowship and has filled all of the chairs in the order, and also held office in the Grand Lodge and the Canton. He is now examining physician for Excel- sior Camp, No. 5124, M. W. A., and other camps of the organization, and also of the Royal Neighbors of America. He was one of the or- ganizers of the Modern Woodmen fraternity and was one of the three who named the order. He likewise belongs to Oriental Lodge, No. 74, F. & A. M., to the Brotherhood of American Yeomen, and for many years he has been a prominent and active member of the Pioneer As- sociation. In strictly professional lines his fraternal relations are with the County and State Medical Societies, the National Medical Association and the Medical Association of Physio-Medical Physi- cians and Surgeons. On matters of general history pertaining to Spokane he may well be consulted for few residents in this city have longer remained here and there are indeed few who have been in closer touch with the life and interests of the community.
adelle Q. Scoll
Rudolph B. Seatt
Rudolph Bowman Scott
T HE spirit of enterprise must be the dominant factor in the life of an individual who makes his way into a new and undeveloped country, willing to meet the difficulties and hardships incident to its upbuilding in order to enjoy the opportunities and advantages, there offered. Such a spirit was possessed in large measure by Rudolph Bowman Scott, who became one of the best known and most prominent men of the northwest. He possessed marked force of character and left the impress of his individuality upon all public movements or business concerns with which he be- came in any wise closely connected. He therefore did much for the benefit of the Spokane country through his activities in farming, real estate, mining, and fire and life insurance. He arrived here in 1883, having made his way from Denver, Colorado, to Coeur d'Alene three years before. His labors were therefore an effective force in shaping the history of not only the western part of Washington but of the state in general. He was an American of Indian, African and Scotch extraction. His birth occurred in New Haven, Connecticut, Novem- ber 16, 1846, and he came of New England ancestry. His maternal grandfather was a Pequot Indian chief, who married a Scotch woman and fought on the side of liberty throughout the war of the Revolu- tion. His paternal grandfather was a West Indian African of the Toussaint l'Ouverture stock and the son of a Barbadoes planter sent to New Haven, Connecticut, to be educated at Yale College.
Rudolph B. Scott pursued a course of study in the Lancasterian School of New Haven, Connecticut, where among his class-mates were four who afterward became governors. He learned the trade of a wood carver in Chauncey Jerome's clock manufacturing establish- ment in New Haven, Connecticut, but at the time of the Civil war put aside all business and personal considerations to espouse the cause of the Union. Already he had become deeply interested in political questions and in the situation of the country prior to this time. He was a boy when in 1859 Abraham Lincoln made campaign speeches throughout Connecticut and in the celebration Mr. Scott carried a torch in the procession in New Haven. He and a brother enlisted for
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service in the Civil war. He was in the North Atlantic Squadron on board the United States gunboat Chicopee and was one of the men that volunteered to accompany Lieutenant Cushing when he blew up the rebel ram Albemarle. At the capture of Plymouth, North Caro- line, Mr. Scott was severely wounded. Following the close of the war he engaged in mining in Colorado, New Mexico and Washington and was at one time connected with the United States mail service, being United States mail agent from Chicago, Illinois, to Danville, at the time of the historic republican convention held in Chicago in 1880. While the three hundred and five delegates stood solid for U. S. Grant for president Mr. Scott held back forty thousand copies of the Cincinnati Enquirer which were full of abuse for General Grant and were intended to flood Chicago and defeat Grant's nomination. The copies did not arrive until the day after the convention, too late to harm his old comrade.
Mr. Scott had an extended acquaintance among prominent men throughout the country and was one of the leading representatives of the Grand Army of the Republic, in the work and activities of which he took a very helpful part. He served on the staff of Com- mander Cosgrove of the department of Washington and Alaska, and was an aid-de-camp of the staff of Russell A. Alger, commander-in- chief of the Grand Army of the Republic. He also served as chief mustering officer of the department of Washington and Alaska and in 1893 was a member of the council of administration, while in 1894 he was a delegate from Washington and Alaska to the twenty-fourth national encampment at Boston. He served as inspector of the de- partment in 1890 and five years later as chief mustering officer. At Seattle, he was elected junior vice commander of the department of Washington and Alaska at the department encampment, on the 22d of June, 1889. Mr. Scott was also a delegate from Spokane county to the state convention that organized the state of Washington held at Walla Walla in September, 1889, and was a delegate to the state con- vention held at Seattle to elect delegates to the national convention at Minneapolis.
Mr. Scott came to the northwest in 1880 and spent three years in the Coeur d'Alene mining country. In 1883 he arrived in Spokane and was one of the first men to establish a fire and life insurance agency here, his company paying all claims in the great fire of 1889. For several years he was manager of the Pequot Mining & Milling Company of Spokane. He continued actively in business until after the outbreak of the Spanish-American war, when he enlisted at Seat- tle on the 25th of April, 1898, as a private of Company B, First
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Washington Veteran Artillery, continuing with that command until November 1, 1898, when by reason of the close of the war he was hon- orably discharged at Seattle with the rank of first lieutenant. He was called to public office in 1902 when appointment of President Roose- velt made him United States Chinese inspector, which position he filled for four years, when in 1906 he resigned on account of ill health. It was three years later that he passed away, his death occurring March 23, 1909.
Mr. Scott was survived by a widow and three children. On the 4th of September, 1883, in Denver, Colorado, he had wedded Miss Adele A. Wagner, a daughter of H. O. and Susan (Lyons) Wagner. The father was a well known character in the anti-slavery days in connection with his service in the operation of the underground rail- road. At one time at his home in Chicago he entertained John Brown, the martyr of Harper's Ferry, and twelve fugitive slaves, all of whom he assisted on their way to freedom in Canada. H. O. Wagner, Jr., a brother of Mrs. Scott, was for five years United States consul at Lyons, France. Mrs. Scott was born in Chicago and by her marriage has become the mother of two sons and a daughter: Rudolph B., a civil engineer in the city service; Henry W., who is spending his time in Mexico and Panama; and Addie S., at home. Mrs. Scott has been quite prominent in the Woman's Relief Corps and was the patriotic instructor for the department of Washington and Alaska. which was installed June 22, 1899. She is also widely known in connection with her work in the Independent Order of Foresters, being the first vice chief ranger in the first companion court organized in the state of Washington. For the past twelve years she has been its financial secretary and in 1904 and 1905 was the department inspector.
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