A look at Seattle's past through the lens of my family's history....The Ross Family from 1852-3 through early 1900s and the Humphrey family from late 1890s to the depression.
Monday, March 28, 2011
From 1903 copy of the Seattle Republican
Ok -- So I'm really jumping around. If John Ross was completely non-capitalistic, my great-grandfather, Capt. Omar J. Humphrey (Sr.) was an utter capitalist. (He even lists his profession as "capitalist" in the birth announcement for my grandfather, O.J. Humphrey Jr, in 1907. I know that he didn't even really move to Seattle from San Francisco until 1905 or so...but he was in Alaska and doing steamship stuff from the early 1890s. Honestly, I'm completely unclear on what he actually DID, other than captain large boats. I have found various listings for him ranging from "an insurance man from Portland" in the early 1890s to the postmaster of Nome (1897?) to the below director of a new bank in Seattle (later absorbed into the Dexter Horton National Bank) to the territorial delegate to Congress from Alaska in 1906 to owner of various steamship and coal companies and candidate for Port Commissioner of Seattle in the teens. He clearly had lost all his money by the depression but my great-aunt Bobbie (Humphrey) told great stories about growing up in a huge old house on Capitol Hill. The picture in the caption of this blog is of my great-grandmother, Eugenie O'Connell Humphrey with Aunt Bobbie and my grand-father, OJ Humphrey whom I called Dappap.
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