Skagit River Journal |
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of History & Folklore Covering from British Columbia to Puget Sound. Washington counties covered: Skagit, Whatcom, Island, San Juan, Snohomish, focusing on Sedro-Woolley and Skagit Valley. This page originated in our Optional Subscribers Magazine An evolving history dedicated to committing random acts of historical kindness The home pages remain free of any charge. We need donations or subscriptions to continue. Please pass on this website link to your family, relatives, friends and clients. |
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Charles X. Larrabee in Utah |
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This birdseye map of Omro, dated 1870, shows a view where we look southeast. The Hiram Johnson mill is located on the lower (north) side of the river. The railroad is to the right. The main Omro downtown is above the river. Courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society. |
The Thistle sternwheeler on the Fox River near Omro. Just as on the Skagit River, the early pioneers arrived on and shipped freight on canoes and sternwheelers in the early years of settlement. Courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society. |
. . . used to hold forth occasionally in the cabins of the settlers, up to 1840, when, becoming partially insane upon the subject of religion, he quit work and commenced a sort of nomadic missionary life, going from house to house, and singing and praying in every family. It mattered not to him what the inmates might be about, he would come right in, sing a hymn, and pray sometimes for an hour or more, until the thing became a nuisance — so much so that many were compelled to forbid him admission to their dwellings. He was a man of large frame, very muscular and powerful; had a strong will, was very decided in his way; spoke slowly and deliberately, except when upon his favorite theme, religion, when his delivery was rapid enough. He had a large head, dark hair, sallow complexion, dark eyes, large and lustrous. He had fair business abilities, but not sufficient education to fill a very high position as a pulpit orator, his manner being wholly sensational. . . . Mr. Johnson continued in this way for some two years after that, when he met with an accident that unfitted him for further usefulness in the ministry, after which he removed first to Walworth county, and lastly to Omro, where, I believe, he still resides engaged in the manufacture of shingles.Hiram's fire-and-brimstone manner was actually topped by his brother Milton, who, Buck wrote, "finally came to believe he was Jesus Christ, claimed to have the power to heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out devils and the like." He was killed in a freak wagon accident in 1842. Their brother, Solon Johnson, appears to have been the black sheep of the family. Buck wrote that Solon "is at present a citizen of Nevada, where he settled some ten or twelve years ago, as a speculator in mining stocks, and a deadbeat generally. . . . But such is life."
First Presbyterian Church, Omro |
. . . He came to Omro in 1858 and has since remained here. For a short time he was engaged as a clerk and later embarking in business alone. He has engaged in several classes of business, as merchant, liveryman and hotel keeper. At present he is the successful operator of the Larrabee House [hotel] at Omro, in connection with which he operates a livery stable. He is the senior member of the firm of A.B. Larrabee & Son (the son was Carroll H. 'Connie' Larrabee), in the drug business and is one of Omro's most successful business men.That hotel replaced the original hotel in town, the Fox River, which was built on the same site on the south side of the river in 1850. Gerard recalled that he ran the hotel for a year in 1853 when the original proprietor died and he attached a hotel party notice, dated September 1 that year, with the name B. Larrabee on it, but we have not connected that person with Ebenezer's family. Smith also noted that a William Larrabee was a new arrival in Omro in 1857 and opened a grocery in 1858, but a man by the same name was among the first settlers at Horicon, Wisconsin, in 1839, so we are unsure if Mary Ann's husband was that new arrival.
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This is the Clark Fork River in the hills west of Deer Lodge, Montana. The Clark Fork rises near Butte, flows by Deer Lodge and Missoula and winds more than 300 miles through southwestern Montana and Idaho. See this terrific Big Sky Fishing site for more photos of the river and for fishing opportunities in the area. |
Ed Larabie, obit photo courtesy of the Deer Lodge Silver State newspaper |
1900 postcard of Butte, Montana, showing the Mountain View mine at the top right and the juxtaposition of the mines to the business district. The author witnessed the eminent-domain strip-mining in the downtown district of Butte during his honeymoon in 1967 while visiting his friend and Butte native Ed Nichols. We opened the back door of a blind-pig bar at about four a.m. and saw the deep pit that cut like a scar almost directly below. |
Montana, everything considered, grows the best horse in the world. The soil, climate, grasses, oats, pure water, dry atmosphere, altitude, latitude, valleys, benches, foothills and mountains, combined, produce the best feet and legs (solid, tough and dense horn and bone, muscle, lung power (depth through heart), endurance and weight not found elsewhere. [Family Manuscript]Charles wrote that, however, after he moved to Portland in 1888. Why did he leave his horses and the place that made him wealthy? One could conclude that he moved on the recommendation of Ed and of Nelson Bennett. Charles met Bennett when Bennett freighted with mule teams to Butte and through the Rockies, and built Butte's first street railway along the way. But his grandson attributed the move to the strict moral code that his mother, a single mom on the frontier, instilled in him and his brother
In a grimy, rough frontier town where mayhem of every kind, killings, fraud and larceny were on the daily menu, and where everyone, except the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the Chinese and Charles X. Larrabee, got drunk every night, the latter's sobriety, industry, honesty and high moral conduct must have stood out like beacons. In contrast with Charley's high morals, William Clark told the citizens of Butte that the smoke and fumes from the copper smelters were good for their health. [Family Manuscript]Indeed, when the WCTU decided that a public library would be a means to help combat Butte's excessive drinking and violence, the officers tracked down Larrabee to Fairhaven and they appealed to him for what might be one of the first examples of "matched giving." He told the WCTU that if they could raise $10,000 locally, he would provide $10,000. Not wanting to be upstaged, Clark chipped in $5,000. The result was the Silver Bow County public library that still stands, with a plaque that reads, "This Library was established by the generosity of Charles X. Larrabee and the citizens of Butte, Nov. 1890." We would only argue that both reasons influenced his move West.
Ben Holladay |
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Holladay Park in northeast Portland is Larrabee's legacy to that city. He chose not to change the name. |
C.X. Larrabee and family lived in the Esmond Hotel near the western approach of the original Morrison Bridge over the Willamette river. |
The Esmond was Portland's grandest hotel in the last half of the 1800s; presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and Ulysses S. Grant stayed there. It was torn down in 1908. Photo, circa 1905, courtesy of Vintage Portland, a spectacular photo blog. Photo restored by Bill Stearns. |
It is related, as a sidelight on the character of Mr. Larrabee, that after the purchase of the addition at a price he considered too low, on account of its forced mortgage sale by the Sheriff, he made the Holladay heirs, Ben and Linda, children of Ben Holladay, pioneer stagecoach operator and railroad builder, a present of a 700-acre farm in Polk County, a valuable triangle of land, and $125,000 in cash. The farm and the triangle were part of the Holladay estate.
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