Biographies
"T"
HUNTINGTON TAYLOR
Business enterprise and progressiveness find manifest expression in the
career of Huntington Taylor, who is the president of the American Bank
& Trust Company of Coeur d'Alene and also the general manager of
the Rutledge Timber Company. Well defined plans have throughout his
entire life been promptly executed, leading to substantial results, and
his business interests have ever been of a nature that has contributed
to the welfare and progress of the district in which he lives as well
as to his individual success.
Mr. Taylor was born in Norwalk, Connecticut, July 26, 1875, his parents
being James Monroe and Kate (Huntington) Taylor. The father, who was
born in Brooklyn, New York, devoted his life to the work of the church
as a Baptist minister and passed away in 1916. He was also a prominent
figure in educational circles, serving for twenty seven years as the
president of Vassar College. His wife, who was born in Rochester, New
York, is still a resident of the Empire state.
Huntington Taylor acquired his early education in Dr. Lyons School, of
Providence, Rhode Island. He afterward attended the Riverview military
academy at Poughkeepsie, New York, from which he was graduated in 1892,
and then entered Yale, in which he completed his course in 1896,
winning the Bachelor of Arts degree. During his college days he was
very active in connection with athletics. Through the two years
following his graduation from Yale he occupied an office position with
the Deering-Milliken Company of New York city and in 1898 he removed to
Cloquet, Minnesota, where he was employed in the lumber yards and mills
of the Weyerhaeuser interests, gaining broad and valuable experience
which has constituted the foundation upon which he has built his
subsequent success. While residing in Minnesota he was for six years
the secretary and treasurer of the Northwest Paper Company, large
manufacturers of paper used in newspaper plants, and after leaving that
position he entered the service of the Northern Lumber Company as
assistant manager. While living in Cloquet he was also very prominently
identified with civic affairs of that district, his aid and influence
ever being given on the side of progress and improvement, yet he never
sought or desired political advancement.
Mr. Taylor's identification with the northwest dates from 1915 and here
his interests have been of an important character, resulting in the
business development of Coeur d'Alene as well as in the promotion of
his individual interests. In 1915 he became the general manager of the
Edward Rutledge Timber Company, which has a very large mill, the plant
being a splendidly equipped one in every particular and devoted to the
manufacture of white pine lumber. This is only one phase of Mr.
Taylor's activities, however, for he is the president of the American
Trust Company of Coeur d'Alene and president of the, St. Joe Boom
Company of St. Joe, Idaho. He carries forward to successful completion
whatever he undertakes and one of the productive elements of his
success is his keen vision in business matters and his sound judgment
and sagacity.
In 1900 Mr. Taylor was united in marriage to Miss Jane Walker, of Glens
Falls, New York, a daughter of Thaddeus Walker, a very prominent and
extensive operator on the Stock Exchange of New York and at one time
the largest landowner in Kansas. To Mr. and Mrs. Taylor have been born
three children; Margaret Elizabeth, Sarah Walker and James Monroe. The
family occupies a very prominent social position, the Taylor home being
the abode of warm-hearted hospitality which is greatly enjoyed by an
extensive circle of friends.
Mr. Taylor while at Yale became a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon. He has
figured prominently in connection with public affairs in the northwest,
as he did when in the upper Mississippi valley. During the World war he
was chairman of the Kootenai County Council of Defense and gave much of
his time to advance war activities and interests connected therewith.
He was made a member of the Inland Empire Air Craft Commission, in
connection with the spruce division, established by the war department
to bring about great production for air craft in connection with the
war.
He belongs to all branches of Masonry and he is identified with the
Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. He is a member of the Western Pine
Lumber Manufacturers' Association and he is a director of the Coeur
d'Alene district of the Loyal Legion Lumbermen & Loggers. This he
aided in organizing and establishing. It is a novel organization
tending to promote harmony between employer and employee and to bring
about a feeling of brotherhood, inculcating the principles of fairness
in all dealing and tending to seek the highest ideals of Americanism.
Mr. Taylor is a man who studies closely the signs of the times and
keeps in touch with the best thinking men of the age in connection with
the political, sociological and economic questions before the country.
His activities have indeed been of great breadth and his life has ever
been actuated by high and honorable principles, the ideals which he
entertains prompting him to put forth most practical efforts for their
adoption.
[Source: History of
Idaho: the gem of the mountains, Volume 4; Edited by James Henry
Hawley; Publ. 1920; Transcribed and submitted to Genealogy Trails by
Andrea Stawski Pack.]
W. A. THOMAS
W. A. Thomas, filling the office of county treasurer of Kootenai county
and a well known resident of Coeur d'Alene, was born in Dekalb county,
Missouri, November 26, 1868, his parents being Ennis C. and Sarah
(Allen) Thomas,-who were natives of Kentucky and Missouri respectively.
The father went to Missouri with his parents in early life, the family
settling on a farm on the Platte purchase. At the time of the Civil War
Ennis C. Thomas joined the Union army as a member of the Twenty-fifth
Missouri Infantry and served under Prentiss. Following the close of
hostilities he returned to Dekalb county and became a resident of
Plattsburg, where he engaged in newspaper publication. He established
the Clinton County Register, which was consolidated with the Lever at
Plattsburg. He was also active in the - organization of a non-sectarian
college known as the Plattsburg College and otherwise he was
prominently identified with public interests in that section of the
country.
W. A. Thomas pursued his education in the schools of Plattsburg and
when thirteen years of age began work in the printing office of his
father, following that pursuit for about twenty years. When certain
sections of Oklahoma were opened for settlement in 1889 he went to that
district and there remained for six years, publishing a paper at
Edmond, Oklahoma. Later he returned to Missouri and again became
identified with newspaper interests there as the owner and publisher of
the Clinton County Democrat. Eventually he made his way to the
northwest, going first to Walla Walla, Washington, while in July, 1902,
he arrived in Coeur d'Alene. Here he began bookkeeping in the general
store of W. B. McFarland, a pioneer merchant of the city, which at that
time contained a population of about one thousand. It was a "wide open
town" with saloons and gambling going on without any interference from
the authorities, a typical western mining town, where largely every man
was a law unto himself.
Mr. Thomas was for a long time actively connected with the Idaho
Mercantile Company, one of the large commercial enterprises of the
city, of which he became a stockholder and a director. This was the
first department store in Coeur d'Alene and Mr. Thomas was one of the
department managers. He afterward became actively connected with the
real estate business in this city and was also the secretary and
treasurer of the Review Publishing & Printing Company of Coeur
d'Alene, thus again becoming actively identified with the line of
business in which he engaged in boyhood.
Mr. Thomas was united in marriage to Miss Anna De Ford, who was born in
Kansas and was living with an uncle at the time of her marriage. They
have become the parents of two children, Mrs. George J. Downing and J.
Ward Arney, who is living in Coeur d'Alene, where he is a well known
attorney. Mrs. Downing's husband, who is an instructor in the
agricultural department of the University of Idaho, was commissioned a
second lieutenant of the field artillery and was made a first
lieutenant at Fort Leavenworth. While in the San Antonio school he was
commissioned captain of the Twenty first Field Artillery of the Fifth
Division. . He was next advanced to the rank of major and is now in the
regular army. He saw active service with the American Expeditionary
Force in France.
Mr. Thomas of this review has always been active in politics. ,He is a
democrat of prominence in Missouri and also in Oklahoma and he has been
an unfaltering champion of the principles of the party since attaining
his majority. He became treasurer of Kootenai county in 1914 and has
since occupied the position, being now the incumbent in the office for
the third term. His election is proof of his personal popularity and
the confidence reposed in him, for the county has a normal republican
majority of seven hundred and twenty and yet elected a democrat to
notice. He is keenly interested in civic affairs, supporting everything
tending to advance public interests. His religious faith is that of the
Presbyterian church and he is very active in its work. He is likewise a
past chancellor of the Knights of Pythias and belongs to Kootenai
Lodge, No. 24, A. F. & A. M., and to the Elks Lodge No. 1254 of
Coeur d'Alene. His interests are broad and varied and he is accounted
one of the public-spirited men of northern Idaho who have accomplished
excellent results in public office for the benefit and upbuilding of
the section of the state in which they reside.
[Source: History of
Idaho: the gem of the mountains, Volume 4; Edited by James Henry
Hawley; Publ. 1920; Transcribed and submitted to Genealogy Trails by
Andrea Stawski Pack.]
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