Biographies for the State of Idaho

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"F"

GEORGE H. FISHER
In southern Idaho, particularly in and about the flourishing center of Bancroft, the name Fisher, as borne by father and son, has been synonymous with many of the most important influences and forces at work for the business and industrial development of this section, and has been equally noted in political and church affairs.

George H. Fisher was born at Richmond, Utah, December 5. 1872, a son of William F. and Millennium (Andrus) Fisher. His father, who was a distinguished pioneer of southern Idaho, and for many years has taken a large part in business and political affairs, was born in Woolich, England, at the age of fourteen came to America, and soon afterwards became a member of a company crossing by wagon the plains to Salt Lake and Pleasant Valley in Utah.

In the early days he became well known over a large section of the west as a daring pony rider, among the trained and expert staff employed by the Wells Fargo Company in the operation of the famous "pony express." In this occupation he encountered many dangers, but lived through them all and is perhaps the only survivor now living who was one of the express riders of that early day.

In 1878 William F. Fisher became an early settler of Idaho, and gained a special distinction in politics, having helped to organize the Democratic party in southern Idaho. It is said of him that he did more to organize that party in those primitive days than did any other man in the state. William F. Fisher was made assessor of what was then Oneida county, a county whose territorial boundaries included a district since divided into Bannock county, Bingham county, Fremont county and Oneida county. His home was established at Oxford, and for many years he has been engaged in the supervision of his extensive enterprises as a stock farmer and merchant. On that property he still lives, being now seventy-three years of age. His wife, Millennium Andrus Fisher, is living at the age of sixty-seven, and she was born at the old Mormon settlement at Nauvoo, Illinois, whence she came as a girl to Utah The children born to William F. Fisher and wife were eleven in number, eight sons and three daughters.

The sixth in order in this family, George H. Fisher, as a boy attended the schools of his home district, near Oxford, and afterwards went to Utah, and had a commercial course in the Brigham Young College at Logan. He also took a course in agriculture, in that state. During the intervals of his school attendance he assisted his father in conducting a store at Oxford. Mr. Fisher became a range rider at an age when he was yet too small to saddle his own horse. Developing expert horsemanship, he acquired a knowledge and fondness of horses, which later led to the enterprise in which he and his brother were successfully engaged for a number of years. Leasing their father's ranch, they established themselves in the business of raising blooded horses. In a few years, Mr. Fisher became known throughout the state as the owner of some of the best known thoroughbred race horses in the northwest.

From very early years, Mr. Fisher has been an active worker in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In 1893, seven weeks after his marriage, he left his home on a mission to the Sandwich Islands, where for three years he labored in the interest of the natives, and where after a short time he was joined by his wife, who became a teacher in the government schools. While in the Hawaiian islands Mr. Fisher visited the leper settlement on the island of Molokai. After this experience in the service of humanity, Mr. Fisher returned home, and joined his brother in the stock business, which they continued together until 1898. His growing influence and activity in politics then caused him to leave the stock ranch. He was offered the Republican candidacy for the state legislature, but declined it. The Democratic committee then offered him the same honor, which he accepted, and was elected by the largest majority ever polled by a candidate for this office in this district. He served in the fifth legislature after which he returned to private life. During 1900 Mr. Fisher was principal of the Woodruff high school at Logan, Utah, and since that time his varied business affairs have occupied his attention.

Mr. Fisher was for some time one of the agents of the Consolidated Wagon and Machine Company, and resigned to take a similar post with the Stevens Implement Company, for whom his field of work assigned was the territory from Logan, Utah, to Southern Idaho. It was' this business which brought him to Bancroft, and here his acquaintance soon led to his taking the position of manager in the Dolbeer Store. From that he became manager for Ira Call, and his successful work as store manager soon convinced him of his ability to run a business for himself as well as for others. Buying the Dolbeer store, he conducted it for a time under the name of Fisher and Titus, and it has since been the Fisher & Alley Mercantile Company. Mr. Fisher has been increasingly successful, owning at the present time not only his extensive business interest, but also a commodious home, a fine two-story brick structure, a splendid dry farm, and other property in Bancroft. He has done much to make the town what it is today. It was through his efforts that the money was raised and labor furnished to construct in Bancroft one of the finest amusement halls in the state of Idaho.

It is needless to emphasize Mr. Fisher's loyalty to the Democratic party which he so creditably served in the capacity of State Senator from Bannock county. He was also appointed a delegate to the Democratic Convention at Baltimore in 1912, but was unable to serve on account of sickness in the family.

On September 20, 1893, he married Laura L. Lewis, of his old home town. Mrs. Fisher is a daughter of Bishop N. R. Lewis of Oxford, Idaho, and was a well known teacher both before and after her marriage. They were the parents of one daughter, Henrietta, who was married May 24, 1911, to George Alley. They have one daughter Phyllis Alley, born June 6, 1912.

An energetic churchman, George H. Fisher has not only fulfilled the mission above described but has also become a prominent church official in Idaho. He is bishop of the Latter Day Saints Church for the Bancroft ward. When the ward was organized on August 11, 1007, Mr. Fisher was ordained a bishop by Apostle George F. Richards of Salt Lake, and is still prominent in that office. Mr. Fisher was chairman of the first Board of Trustees of the Village of Oxford and is now a member of the Board at Bancroft. His varied experience in business and in public life has matured his judgment to the extent that his opinion and advice are sought by many, and as a public speaker he is recognized as among the best in the state.
Source: HISTORY OF IDAHO VOLUME II; BY HIRAM T. FRENCH, M. S.; Publ. 1914
Transcribed and submitted to Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack

HARRY L. FISHER
No uncertain priority is that which has been gained by Mr. Fisher as one of the strong and successful members of the Idaho bar, and in his chosen profession he has made a record of admirable service, through which he has dignified the vocation of his choice and honored the state of his adoption. He served two terms as county attorney of Boise county and was engaged in the practice of his profession at Idaho City, the judicial center of that county, until 1907, when he removed to Boise, the capital city of the state, where he now controls a substantial and representative practice and is known as a loyal and progressive citizen.
Mr. Fisher was born in Daviess county, Missouri, on the 20th of January, 1873, and is a son of John and Mary (King) Fisher, the former of whom was born in Ohio and the latter in Pennsylvania, she having been a girl at the time of her parents' removal to Missouri, where she was reared to maturity and where her marriage was solemnized. John Fisher grew to manhood in the old Buckeye state and is a scion of one of its sterling pioneer families.

Within a short time after the close of the Civil war he removed to Missouri, where he continued to be identified with agricultural pursuits for many years, as one of the prosperous farmers of Daviess county. In 1898, he removed to Idaho, where he and his devoted wife were numbered among the honored citizens of Ada county. They resided upon a well improved ranch about four miles distant from Boise, until the death of the latter in 1900. Daniel Fisher, father of John, was of German lineage and was a valiant soldier in an Ohio regiment in the Civil war. Samuel King, maternal grandfather of the subject of this review, was likewise numbered among the loyal soldiers of the Union in the great conflict between the north and south and was a member of a Pennsylvania volunteer regiment. He was a farmer by vocation and passed the closing years of his life in Missouri. The lineage of the King family is traced to Scotch-Irish origin.

Harry L. Fisher gained his preliminary education in the public schools of his native county, including the high-school, and this was supplemented by a course in a preparatory school at Kidder, Caldwell county, Missouri. The expenses incidental to the prosecution of higher academic studies as well as his professional education were defrayed from resources of his own winning. In 1894 he was matriculated in the law department of Stanford University, at Palo Alto, California, where he continued his technical studies for one year, having previously initiated the reading of law under effective private preceptorship.

From 1891 to 1895 he was variously employed as a miner, school teacher and farm workman, principally in Idaho, and in this way he earned the money which enabled him to continue his educational work. In 1895 Mr. Fisher established his permanent home in Idaho, and in January of the following year he was admitted to the bar of the state, upon examination before the supreme court. In the spring of 1898, he engaged in the active practice of his profession at Idaho City, the capital of Boise county, and through his energy, integrity and ability he soon built up a lucrative practice, besides which he gained strong hold upon the confidence and esteem of the people of the county. He was sincere, steadfast and energetic, and his practice was finally extended into all of the state and federal courts in Idaho.

Ever a stalwart in the camp of the Republican party and zealous as a worker in behalf of its cause, in 1902, Mr. Fisher was elected county attorney of Boise county, only one other Republican candidate, the county superintendent of schools, having been elected at the time. In 1904, Mr. Fisher was re-elected, and his administration, covering a total period of four years, has passed on record as one of the best in the history of the office in Boise county.

From a newspaper article published about the time of the expiration of his first term are taken the following pertinent extracts, with slight paraphrase: "Mr. Fisher's work as prosecuting attorney has been most thorough and satisfactory. He has made it a practice to attend personally all prosecutions and examinations in the justices' courts, and as a result there has not been one case dismissed because of irregularities and informalities in the papers, the while every case prosecuted has resulted in a conviction, with one exception. Again, the fines imposed in these courts during Mr. Fisher's term have been sufficient to pay all expenses incurred in them, while heretofore they have been a source of great expense to the county. The costs in the St. Cyr murder case were necessarily heavy, because of the distance travelled by the witnesses,' but were materially reduced because of the fact that the county attorney went in person to interview the witnesses, thereby saving the expense of calling many whose testimony would have been immaterial. The St. Cyr murder trial was one of the most interesting and exciting ever tried in the county. There was but one eye-witness to the murder, and soon after the tragedy an effort was made to spirit this witness out of the state. But this action was thwarted by the prompt, action of the county attorney and sheriff. Mr. Fisher did not have assistance in the prosecution of this case, and it was evident to all who crowded the court room during the trial that he did not need any. although pitted against James H. Hawley, the ablest criminal lawyer in the state. It was expected that Mr. Fisher would vigorously prosecute the case and acquit himself in a creditable manner, but it was not anticipated that he would cope on equal terms with such an experienced and able lawyer as Mr. Hawley, and even force the latter to the wall, as was done many times during this stubborn contest.

The World, in commenting on this trial at the time, said: "County Attorney Fisher's argument in the St. Cyr case is pronounced by all who heard it as being second to none in point of clear reasoning and incisive logic they ever listened to in a court room in Idaho City. The way he has carried this case all through entitles him to great credit and the hearty congratulations of every good citizen in the county. The neatness and dispatch with which he obliterated testimony for the defense in cross examinations, illustrated the keenness and quickness of his intellect. Every detail of the theory of the defense fell flat"

During his regime as county attorney Mr. Fisher also handled with characteristic fineness and ability many important civil cases and saved to Boise county large sums of money. He was at all times faithful and courageous in the discharge of his official duties and permitted no compromise for the sake of personal expediency in the face of formidable opposition at any time.

In the spring of 1904, Mr. Fisher was made a nominee for a member of the board of trustees of Idaho City, and concerning this incident in his career the Idaho Weekly World gave the following statements, which are well worthy of perpetuation in this article: "The ticket upon which he ran was pledged to certain reforms in event of election. The opposition singled out Mr. Fisher and made a personal and bitter fight against him because, as they alleged, he was in favor of moving the county seat. One of his opponents became faint-hearted and told the others that 'There is no use fighting Fisher. The people will vote for him even if he threatens to burn the town the next minute.' The people did vote for him and elected him by a vote of more than three to one; what is more, the pledges of the campaign have already been carried out."

As already noted, Mr. Fisher continued in practice at Idaho City until 1907, when he established his home and professional headquarters in the capital city of the state, where he has continued to devote himself earnestly to the work of his chosen calling and where he holds prestige as one of the thoroughly representative members of the bar of this commonwealth,—a man of strength and high principles and a citizen of utmost loyalty and progressiveness. He is a member of the Ada County Bar Association and the Idaho State Bar Association, and he is affiliated with the Woodmen of the World. In addition to controlling a well established law business, with offices in the Odd Fellows Temple building, Mr. Fisher has, since his removal to Boise, given much of his time and energy to organizing and financing various irrigation enterprises and other interests which upbuild and develop the material resources of the state.

In Boise, on the 2nd of June, 1897, Mr. Fisher was united in marriage to Miss Anna Ott, who was born and reared in Ada county, this state, and whose father, Henry Ott, was a sterling pioneer of this commonwealth. Mrs. Fisher is a member of the Baptist church. Mr. and Mrs. Fisher own and occupy a pleasant home at 1307 North Twelfth street, and in the same a cordial welcome is ever assured to their many friends. They became the parents of one child, Doris, who was born on the 7th of December, 1899, and whose winsome presence adds brightness to the family home.

[HISTORY OF IDAHO VOLUME II; BY HIRAM T. FRENCH, M. S.; Publ. 1914; Transcribed and submitted to Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack.]

SAMUEL WILCOX FORNEY, M.D.
The physicians of Boise, Idaho, have been recruited from every part the country, and as a class are representative of what, is best in the profession. Prominent among those of the younger generation whose activities have served to give them honorable position in the science may be mentioned Samuel Wilcox Forney, M. D., who, although a resident of Boise for but comparatively a short period, has gained an enviable reputation and a remunerative practice. Dr. Forney is a native of Illinois, born in Minonk, Woodford county, December 29, 1883. His father, Henry Clay Forney, was born in Illinois, and is now living at Minonk. where he is a wealthy retired land owner. The mother of Dr. Forney bore the maiden name of Edmona C. Wilcox, and is still living in her native Prairie state, and she and her husband" have had two children: Samuel Wilcox and Helen D.

Samuel Wilcox Forney received his preliminary educational training in the public and high schools of Minonk, and graduated from the latter in 1901. Following this, he entered Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, and after a three-year course became a student at Rush Medical College, Chicago, where he was graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1908. For one and one-half years, Dr. Forney was interne at the Chicago Polyclinic hospital and post-graduate school, and also acted in a like capacity at the Ilenrotin hospital, after which he was associated in practice for six months in Chicago with Dr. Kleinpell. At this time Dr. Forney decided to come west, and March 30, 1911, arrived in Boise. He immediately engaged in practice, opening offices at Nos. 406-408 Overland building, and has succeeded in building up a large and representative practice. Dr. Forney is a close student, and takes great interest in the work of the Ada County Medical Association, the Idaho State Medical Society, the Tri-State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He is a member of the staff of St. Luke's hospital, and his standing among his associates is deservedly high. In addition to the college fraternity of Alpha Kappa. Dr. Forney belongs to the Masons and the University Club and Commercial Club.

[HISTORY OF IDAHO VOLUME II; BY HIRAM T. FRENCH, M. S.; Publ. 1914; Transcribed and submitted to Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack.]

FRANK FOSTER
In 1888 Frank Foster came to Idaho, locating in Boise, where he became employed in a local brick yard, a position for which he was thoroughly fitted by reason of his splendid training as apprentice and journeyman to the trade in his early life in England, his native land. That opportunities are never wanting in America Mr. Foster soon learned, and in 1894 he had so prospered that he found it possible to enter the brick manufacturing business on his own responsibility, W. S. Nichols joining him in the venture. Three years later Mr. Foster purchased the interests of his partner and has since conducted the plant upon his own judgment, while the business has grown apace with each succeeding year. In other ways Mr. Foster has prospered, and he is today regarded as one of the most successful business men of the district.

Born in Sussex, England, on May 13, 1858, Frank Foster is the son of William and Mercy (King) Foster, worthy people of that county, who were there born and reared and passed their lives. The father died there in 1906 at the age of sixty-five and the mother passed away in 1904, when she was sixty three years of age. Their son, the subject of this review, attended the schools of his native town until the beginning of his teens, when he found it incumbent upon him to leave school and aid in the support of the family. He worked on the farm at home until he was about fourteen then went to work in a pottery and brick kiln in his native county. When he was eighteen, desiring to learn the trade in all its details, he apprenticed himself in the pottery trade, and continued in his work until he was a journeyman workman. In the meantime, the young man married Miss Jane Brown, at Kent, England, the ceremony taking place on February 26, 1879, the bride being the daughter of Edward and Susan Brown of County Kent.

Some years after his marriage they took passage for America, locating in Kansas in 1884, and settling for a time in Seneca, Kansas. He did not identify himself with his regular trade in that place, but was variously occupied until 1887 when he decided to move farther west, and accordingly came to Boise, Idaho,—then a struggling young city, but one which presented greater opportunities than did the more settled communities which he had but recently vacated. He soon secured employment in a brick yard, working by the day for three years, and in 1894, as stated in a previous paragraph, he, with one W. S. Nichols, established a small brick manufacturing plant, which they continued to operate in partnership for three years. After Mr. Foster bought out his partner three years later, the business began to assume greater proportions, and today his plant is one of the finest and most extensive in the state. Mr. Foster acquired a valuable tract of land of twenty acres in the northeast section of Boise, and there he has erected one of the most modern plants in the state, equipped with every known appliance for the successful manufacture of brick. In 1910 the plant made and marketed four million bricks, the greater part of which were used in Boise, and it has continued to produce in excess of that quantity since that time.

In addition to his immediate business interests, Mr. Foster is president of the Herklith Company, engaged in the manufacture of patent flooring and artificial marble that concern being an important factor in the building interests of this district today.

Politically, Mr. Foster gives his allegiance to the Republican Party, and he is a member of the Woodmen of the World, although he maintains no other fraternal affiliations. He with his wife and family, are members of the Roman Catholic Church. Mr. Foster is a man quiet in his tastes and inclinations, and his greatest pleasure is found in his home and in the midst of his goodly family. His wife has been an invalid for years, and his care of her has developed the gentler side of his nature to the utmost degree.

Of the ten children born to Mr. and Mrs. Foster, four are deceased, the two first born having died in infancy. The others are: Mildred Alice; Frank Fredtrick, who was born in Kent, England, and is now married and engaged in business in Boise with his father; Mrs. Edith Foster Bond, born in Sussex, England, and now living in Boise; she is the mother of two children; Harry J., who was born in Brown county, Kansas, is now engaged in successful farming in the Boise Valley; he is married; Mrs. R. H. Cole, born in Boise, died in Boise in February, 1912; Joseph Christopher and Emily Marguerite, twins, were born in Boise; and Howard Edward, born in Boise, is attending school in this city.

The family is one which has won the high regard of all who come within the circle of their acquaintance in Boise, where Mr. Foster is regarded as one of the valued citizens of the city, interested in its best development and concerned in all movements tending to elevate and encourage the best in civic and communal life.

[HISTORY OF IDAHO VOLUME II; BY HIRAM T. FRENCH, M. S.; Publ. 1914; Transcribed and submitted to Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack.]

ROBERT P. FRASER
For all time must Idaho, the gracious "Gem of the Mountains," owe a debt of honor to the sterling pioneers who laid broad and deep the foundations for the magnificent superstructure that has been reared and that has made this one of the great and prosperous commonwealths of the Union. One of such sterling pioneer citizens still remaining to give stirring accounts of the hardships and vicissitudes of the early days on the frontier is Robert Paul Fraser, who is one of the best known and most highly honored citizens of Boise and who has been most influential in the development of the splendid resources of the state, especially as a ranchman and mine owner. He has not been denied temporal success and prosperity of no uncertain order and is one of the substantial capitalists of the state in which he is now living virtually retired, after many years of earnest toil and endeavor. Such are the men to whom special tribute should be paid in an historical work of the province assigned to the one at hand.

Mr. Fraser was born in Nova Scotia, that staunch and historic old province of the Dominion of Canada, and the date of his nativity was May 2, 1838. He is a scion of one of the old and prominent families of that province and his lineage is traced back to the sturdiest of Scotch origin. He is a son of Robert and Nancy .(McCloud) Fraser. In the schools of Nova Scotia Mr. Fraser gained his early educational training, which was continued until he had attained to the age of seventeen years. He then went to the city of Boston, Massachusetts, where he entered upon an apprenticeship to the trade of harness and saddle making. He remained in Boston one year and completed his apprenticeship at Providence, Rhode Island, where he continued in service for two years. In 1858, when twenty years of age and well equipped as a journeyman at his trade, he made his way across the continent to California, where he secured employment at common ranch work, in the Sacramento valley. In the following year he turned his attention to prospecting for gold, on Trinity river, and he thus continued until 1863, when he went into Nevada, where he did prospecting on the famous Comstock lode until the spring of 1865, in the meanwhile encountering manifold hardships and often definite privation, the while he lived up to the full tension of the strenuous life of the venturesome prospector and miner.

In the spring of 1865, in company with fifteen companions, he made his way to Idaho, with a pack train, and en route the party had repeated skirmishes with hostile Indians, so that a constant vigilance was necessary day and night. They made Silver City their destination, and Mr. Fraser had been sufficiently successful in his mining ventures to enable him finally to engage in the lumber business at Silver City. This enterprise in that early mining camp proved successful and Mr. Fraser soon amplified his activities by engaging also in stock-raising, his real and substantial success having had its initiation at this time. In 1867 he made a visit to California, and the prime object of this trip may be understood when it is stated that in 1867 was solemnized his marriage to Miss Anna M. Estee, who was born in the state of California and whose father, George Estee, was a pioneer settler in California.

In the spring of 1868 Mr. Fraser returned to Silver City, in company with his bride, and in later years they have often reverted to the incidents of this honeymoon trip across the plains and over the mountains to their new home. The lumber and livestock business of Mr. Fraser grew to large proportions and he continued operations along these lines until 1872, when he found himself in what he designates as "comfortable circumstances." In the year mentioned he disposed of his interests at Silver City, including his ranch property in that vicinity, and he then sent his wife on a visit to her old home in California, as it was his desire to make a roving and uncertain individual journey, by land and water, to Tacoma and Seattle, Washington. Six months were utilized in completing this trip and Mr. Fraser then returned to the Comstock district in Nevada, where he established himself in the lumber business, in connection with which he substantially erected and placed in operation a saw mill at Mammoth, Mono county, California. This venture proved most successful and he maintained his home at Mammoth City until 1882, in the autumn of which year he sold his interests in California and Nevada and returned to Idaho, where for the first years he was engaged in the lumber business in Boise.

He then turned his attention to the sheep industry, in connection with which he went to California and purchased a herd of seventeen hundred head, which he drove overland to the Jordan valley, in Oregon, where he disposed of the stock at an appreciable profit. He then returned to Idaho and purchased another herd, and, operating principally in Idaho, he had at times fully twenty thousand head of sheep on his ranch properties and on the open range. He has continued to be identified with the sheep industry to the present and has continuously been interested in the development and operation of mining properties.

He has won prosperity through normal and worthy means, has been one of the world's productive workers and well merits the success which renders it possible for him to live at the present time in gracious retirement. He has a beautiful modern home in Boise, and in its splendid library he finds his greatest pleasure and diversion. He has been a student of the best literature and is a man of broad and exact information. He takes a lively interest in the questions and issues of the hour, is liberal and public-spirited and has ever accorded unqualified allegiance to the Republican party, though he has had no desire for public office. He is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity and his daughter, Mildred, is now the wife of Crawford Moore, vice-president of the First National Bank of Boise. The beautiful home of Mr. Fraser is located at 615 Warm Springs avenue, and with Mrs. Fraser as its gracious chatelaine, is a center of refined hospitality.

[HISTORY OF IDAHO VOLUME II; BY HIRAM T. FRENCH, M. S.; Publ. 1914; Transcribed and submitted to Genealogy Trails by Andrea Stawski Pack.]

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