Biographies
"Y"
 CAPTAIN JOHN E. YATES
Idaho is as fortunate in its citizenship as in its vast wealth of
natural resources. All the years there has been a work to do here
requiring the utmost of human industry and commercial energy, and in
its performance many of the men of power have been attracted to the
state. Many have come here early in their careers and in sharing the
task of development have gained their own material prosperity. But in
Capt. John E. Yates of Boise is an example of one who after years of
fortunate endeavor in other parts of the world chose to bring his
capital, his broad experience in affairs, and a proved executive
ability to this new state and mingle them with the purposeful
enterprise which is destined to create one of the greatest
commonwealths of the Union from Idaho.
Captain Yates is one of the best known men in business and public life,
so that it is merely for sake of completeness that his present
relations are mentioned. At this writing he is a candidate for the
office of state treasurer, and is closing a second term as member of
the state senate. In the senate he has been chairman of the committee
on banks and banking and that on public lands. He was also a member of
the house of representatives during the sixth session. Captain Yates
represents that brand of political faith and principles which is almost
original with the northwestern states, and during the exciting
political year of 1912 allied himself with the new Progressive Party.
In Boise and in various parts of the state his business interests are
extensive, and he is known as a banker and in different lines of
enterprise.
Few men have such varied careers, for he has pursued fortune through
nearly every clime and quarter of the globe. Half a century ago he was
a poor boy, and the ample attainments and possessions of later life
were never a product of inheritance or happy chance.
The fortune of birth gave him Maine for his native state. Scientists
have written much to illustrate the influence of geography and physical
environment on the lives and activities of mankind. In this case it
undoubtedly made a sailor out of Captain Yates, and it was as commander
of a vessel of the high seas that he acquired the title by which he is
generally known.
In Boise one of the conspicuous new buildings is the Hotel Bristol, the
builder and proprietor of which is Captain Yates. In its name he honors
his birthplace, which was Bristol on the coast of Maine. He was born
there on the 4th of February, 1845, of an old family which had
furnished many members to seafaring industry. His great-grandfather
George Yates had come from England and established his home at Bristol.
John Yates, father of the captain, was a native of Bristol, followed
the sea, and made his last voyage in 1849 at the age of thirty-five,
never returning. He had married a Bristol girl, a Miss Sophia Blunt, in
1841, a daughter of Samuel Blunt, who settled first in Massachusetts
and later in Maine, and who was a soldier in the War of 1812. Her
maternal grandfather, James Morton, had been a soldier of the
Revolution. The wife and widow survived her sailor husband upwards of
half a century and died at Bristol in 1897, aged seventy-five. There
were just two children, Captain John E., and his brother Oscar I., who
died at Bristol in May, 1908, at the age of sixty-eight.
Captain Yates spent the first sixteen years of his life in his home
town, where he attended the public schools. The fatal destiny of the
sea which had taken his father and so many of his neighbors had no
influence to deter him from the occupation to which the boys on the
Maine coast are almost born. He sailed away before the mast and for
twenty five years hardly knew any other home than his narrow vessel
bounded by wastes of ocean. He rapidly rose in rank and responsibility,
and for fifteen years was captain of an East Indian merchantman engaged
in the Indian and oriental trade.
Though to a landsman the choice seems a trifle strange, when he retired
from the sea, Captain Yates erected his home in one of the most central
states of the continent, Illinois, settling at Sycamore, where he
married and lived for some years. He first came out to Boise in 1892,
and in 1898 brought out his family and made this city his permanent
home.
Captain Yates was one of the organizers and for several years was
president of the Yates & Corbus Live Stock Company, and has been in
the stock business during most of his residence in this state. He was
also one of the organizers and for four years was president of the Bank
of Commerce of Boise. His real estate holdings are extensive. In 1907
he erected and still owns the Yates Block, and the Bristol Hotel has
already been mentioned. His is one of the most attractive homes in the
vicinity of Boise, and adjoining it on the outskirts of the city is his
fine fruit farm of sixty acres. Besides his other political activities,
he served for two years in the Boise city council. He is active in the
Commercial Club, is a member of the Masons and the Elks of Boise, and
in religious faith is a Unitarian.
Captain Yates was married at Bristol, Maine, in 1872, to Miss Roxanna
Cox, a native of that place and a daughter of George Cox. This wife
passed away. In 1887 in Sycamore, Illinois, he married Georgie
Townsend, a daughter of Amos Townsend. Seven of their eight children
are living, namely: Dorothy, now a student in the University of
California; John, who is deceased; Margaret and Marjorie, twins, who
were born in the old Sherman House at Chicago and are now in college at
Simmons, Boston; Oscar T.; Frederick D.; William T.; and Stephen.
[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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