Trails-to-the-Past-Nevada-Washoe-Biographies-pg2

L. W. LEE ----Is a native of New York, having been born in Genesee County in 1834. When he was quite young he removed with his parents to Elkhorn, Walworth County, Wisconsin, and they were among the first settlers of that section of the country. In 1860 Mr. Lee crossed the plains, and located at Gold Hill, Storey County, Nevada, where he remained for about five years, part of the time engaged in keeping hotel, he afterwards went to Long Valley and engaged in ranching and keeping station until 1873, at which time he came to Reno, where he has since resided.

Mr. Lee is the owner and proprietor of the well-known livery and feed stable, situated on the southwest corner of Fourth and Sierra Streets. The building is 69x100 feet, two stories, first of stone and second of brick, and was built by him in 1875. In connection with his livery business he is quite extensively engaged in shipping cattle, often ships as high as 8,000 head in a single year, about one-half of them being weighed at Reno. He was married in December, 1858, at Elkhorn, Wisconsin, to Miss Julia D. Moore, a native of that place.

B. F. LEETE ----is one of the many thousands sent out by the pioneer States in the Railroad and Canal developments, which have resulted in such an unprecedented growth of a nation in wealth and power. Little did Clinton think what a movement he was inaugurating when he projected the Erie Canal. Although his ideas were far in advance of the age, his wildest dreams fell far short of the reality. When " Clinton's Ditch " was completed to the central and western parts of New York, opening up a market for the wheat, the State took a start in the race for wealth which it has maintained to the present day. It was the awakening of that spirit of enterprise that has since girdled the world with electric wires and reticulated a continent with railroads; that has sent into the commercial arteries of the world a set of business men whose ideas of development and extension of business enterprises found no geographical limits, no obstructions in lofty mountain ranges, deserts, or wide oceans. Fifty years since almost every daring enterprise was projected by a New Yorker. Men from, their infancy were accustomed to consider great enterprises, and railroads, canals, and lines of steamers were planned by school children as pastimes.

The subject of this sketch was the outgrowth, the logical sequence, of that unprecedented intellectual activity that gave birth to such men of enterprise and courage as those who projected and completed the trans-continental railroads, and who outstrip the fables of the Arabians in their development of mechanical powers. B. F. Leete was born at De Ruyter, Madison County, New York, February 25, 1831. He had the advantages of the common schools, and also of the Union School of Lockport, in his native State.

It will be remembered by our readers that Lockport is the site of the connection of the Tonawanda Creek with the long levels of the Erie Canal, involving an elevation of the boats by means of locks of about eighty feet. The works, though surpassed by many engineering projects since, were, at the time, considered stupendous, and undoubtedly the vast piles of cut granite, forming the five different lifts, had a stimulating influence in determining him to adopt the profession of civil engineering. At the age of twenty we find him engaged in the construction of the Niagara Branch of the New York Central Railroad. This was completed and opened to the public in September, 1852.

He was next engaged in the exploration and location of a route for branches of the New York and Erie Railroad, under the immediate direction of Alfred Tufts, of Boston, and S. W. Hall, of Philadelphia. These explorations were completed early in 1854, from which time he engaged in bridge-building until 1858. When the trans-continental railroad was projected he was employed with the famous engineer. T. D. Judah, to make the preliminary surveys from Sacramento eastward, the road being afterwards located nearly on the same survey. After the Central Pacific was well under way, he took charge of the Swamp Land Surveying Corps, for Sacramento District, during the years 1861-62. In the fall of 1862 he bridged the Pajero River below Gilroy, on the line of Santa Clara and Monterey Counties, for T. P. Sargent and Brothers.

In September, 1863, he surveyed, and in company with F. Birdsall, built the Golden Canon Grade. This operation engaged his attention until 1869, when he discovered the great salt mine in Churchill County. Perceiving the value of these in connection with the immense reduction of silver on the Comstock and other mines, he built the Eagle Salt Works, from which are supplied all the mines of the Comstock. Previous to this salt was imported from the coast, or brought long distances from the interior, in some instances on the backs of Indians, These works being on the line of the Central Pacific Railroad, he was enabled to supply the mills at a much lower figure than they were formerly accustomed to pay.

In consequence of the permanent character of his Nevada investments, he removed his family to Reno, where he has, since 1871, resided with his family when not absent on some of his numerous business operations. His residence, a view of which is given in this work, indicates taste and a love of beauty without a desire for ostentatious display. Visitors will find the interior corresponding with the exterior in its arrangements for comfort and the gratification of the high aspirations of cultivated minds.

A. A. LONGLEY -------Is a native of Kentucky, born in Caldwell County, A. D. 1834. Receiving an education in his native State he left there at the early age of nineteen years, and came to California, where he was, for a number of years, engaged in teaming and trading through the mountains.

In 1861 he came to the then Territory of Nevada, and the next year thereafter settled on the place where he now resides. At that time there were very few settlers in the valley, the Indians predominating by a large majority. The land had not been surveyed by the Government at that time.

Mr. Longley pre-empted 160 acres, and since then has purchased about 500 acres more, and therefore has quite an extensive ranch. By his persistent efforts, and indomitable will and energy, he has produced from the originally barren waste of sage-brush a beautiful, well-appointed ranch. The expense of clearing the land of its rocks and sagebrush, and the construction of ditches to convey the water of the river over his land, has necessarily been great, but a glance around his home-place shows what can be done in that line.

He is at the present time a successful stock-raiser, and has experienced the ups and downs pertaining to an early settlement in a wild and barren country. His residence is on the Truckee Meadows, near Reno, in Washoe County. He was married in 1866 to Miss Mary F. Moore, a native of California, who died in May, 1877, leaving four children. In June, 1879, he was married again, to Mrs. Mary O. Noyes, who is a native of Massachusetts.

R S. OSBURN -----the subject of the following sketch, is a native of the State of Pennsylvania, having been born at Meadville, Crawford County, on the twenty-first of September, 1849.

His education, which was a liberal one, was received in his native town, and when about seventeen years of age he left his home and settled in Eugene City, Oregon, and engaged in the drug business. He remained at that place until 1872, when he removed to Jacksonville, in the same State, still continuing in the same business. After eighteen months' stay in the latter place he came to Reno and formed a partnership with J. E. Simpson, in the apothecary and drug business, and since the death of his partner, in 1878, has been associated in business with J. S. Shoemaker.

Mr. Osburn was elected County Clerk of Washoe County, on the Democratic ticket, in 1880. He was married in 1872 to Miss Anna E. Lemmon, of Reno.

ANDREW SAUER, ---The subject of the following sketch, is a native of Germany. He was born in the village of Dielheim, on the fourteenth of January, 1829. In the year 1850 he left the land of his birth, and emigrated to the United States, locating first at Cincinnati, Ohio, where he lived three years.

At the end of which period he came to the Pacific Coast, and spent the succeeding six years, partly in the mines, and the remainder in the butchering business, which he successfully followed in Amador, Sacramento, and El Dorado Counties.

Mr. Sauer is a shrewd business man; one that is bound to succeed wherever his lot may be cast. A desire to see more of his adopted country led him to Nevada, as one of the early pioneers, in the year 1859, and located in Washoe Valley, where he has since resided. He was married June 21, 1859, to Miss Catharine Baker, and is blessed with nine living children at the present time, four boys and five girls.

GEORGE SMITH, SR. ----The gentleman referred to in this short sketch is a native of England, and was born at Sherrington, in 1816. In the year 1854 he crossed the ocean and found a home in the United States, locating first at south Salt Lake City, Utah. After a few years he, with his family, came to Carson Valley, Nevada, and soon after located in a beautiful valley, which he very appropriately named Pleasant Valley, lying further to the north, towards the noted Steamboat Springs.

He now resides upon the same ranch that he located in 1858. Mr. Smith was one of the first, if not the first white man to settle along the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains; and, by indomitable will and great energy, has accomplished what very few men could have done. The danger surrounding such an early settlement among the Indians cannot be fully portrayed. He has a well-stocked ranch, his business Iies in that direction, which he fully understands. He has a large family, consisting of eight children, all living, and an estimable wife.

GEORGE S. SMITH ----The subject of this sketch is of English parentage, being born in England, in the year 1840. At the early age of fourteen years he came to the United States with his parents, and lived with them at Salt Lake City, Utah, in the neighborhood of five years, when they moved to the western portion of the then Territory of Utah, and settled near his present location, in Pleasant Valley, Washoe County.

Being an energetic and capable young man, he soon distinguished himself among the pioneers of those days, and stands well in the estimation of his neighbors and acquaintances. He has a fine farm, containing 160 acres, adjoining that of his father. He was married in the year 1862, to Miss Ellen Cook, who is a native of Scotland, their union being blessed with four children, three of whom are living at the present time, death having broken their family circle by taking their oldest child, a son. Mr. Smith is pleasantly situated in his present location, and is a gentleman respected by all who know him.

JAMES SULLIVAN -----Is a native of Ireland, and was born on the first of February, 1836. At the age of twenty years he crossed the water to America, and immediately after landing went to Port Jervis, Orange County, New York, where he had relatives living, where he remained until 1860, when he came to California by way of the Isthmus of Panama, arriving in San Francisco on the twenty-fourth of September. One month later he went to Sacramento, and was employed in the hardware establishment of Gillig, Mott & Co., during the next two years.

In 1862 he came to Nevada on business connected with the firm, and being favorably impressed with the country, decided to locate here, which he did in the month of March, 1863. in Truckee Meadows, three miles northeast of Reno, on the Surprise Valley Road, where he now resides. In 1864 he was in partnership with P. J. Kelley in the hotel business at Glendale, and during the same year built a hotel on the Peavine Road, but soon after he withdrew from the partnership a heavy snow and rain-storm having destroyed the well, which had been dug at great expense, thereby rendering the property valueless.

In 1872 Mr. Sullivan built a fine brick house on the site of his first residence. His ranch consists of 140 acres of very productive land, also 100 acres of grazing land, all of which is fenced and well watered by irrigating ditches on over part of the ranch, which is also well stocked with cattle. Through his indomitable will and energy he has made a beautiful place out of a waste of sage-brush, for which he deserves great credit.

JOHN TWADDLE -----Was one of the pioneers of Nevada. He was a native of Scotland, and was born on the twentieth of July, 1825, near the city of Edinburgh. In 1848 he came to the United States, and located near St. Louis, Missouri, where for five years he was engaged in mining.

In the year 1853 he crossed the plains to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he resided seven years, at which time he removed to the western part of the Territory, now called Nevada, and located in Washoe Valley. In company with his brother they decided to make this their future home. Their claim was near where the little town of Franktown now stands. The brothers lived together for nine years, when the subject of our sketch sold out to his brother, and located further down the valley, where he lived until the date of his death, November 15, 1879. He was married March 6, 1846, to Miss Jane Brown, who, with their three children, still occupy the old home.

W A. WALKER ----was born in Charleston, Kanawha County, Virginia, November 30, 1851. He received a thorough education, being a graduate of Hanover College, at Hanover, Indiana, and Notre Dame University, at South Bend, Indiana. He also spent two years at the German Universities and in traveling through Europe. In 1871 he came to the Pacific Coast and located in the city of San Francisco, where he read law, intending to adopt that profession. In 1872 became to Reno, Washoe County, Nevada, and engaged in the mercantile business until 1878, at which time he was elected Sheriff of the County, on the Democratic ticket, and in 1880 was re-elected. Mr. Walker was married in 1874 to Miss Helen K. Fonda, of San Francisco.

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