MRS. PHILIP J. PENTECOST
This land was afterward paid for by Philip J. Pentecost and an older brother, Charles N., and thus came into their possession. For thirty years the two brothers cooperated in their farming enterprise and in the meantime added to their holdings until the place comprised a thousand acres. Charles N. Pentecost afterward acquired extensive land holdings elsewhere and Philip J. Pentecost purchased his interest in the Walla Walla county farm, which he still owns independently. He also has four hundred acres on Blue Creek which is largely grazing land and on which he runs as high as a hundred head of cattle at a time. About 1901 he left the farm and took up his abode in the city in order to give his children better educational opportunities and since then has resided in Walla Walla, having a handsome residence at 603 Cherry street. He also owns four other city residences. For the past seven years he has rented his farm lands and has practically lived retired.
On the 29th of June, 1889, Mr. Pentecost was united in marriage to Mrs. Joseph Maul, who bore the maiden name of Nellie Wolfe and is a daughter of Harry Wolfe, who crossed the plains to Washington with a horse team in 1888. By her first husband Mrs. Pentecost had a daughter, Catherine Z. M., now Mrs. Stanley Sleeper of Lewiston, Idaho, and to Mr. and Mrs. Pentecost has also been born a daughter, Sadie R., who is the wife of A. E. Page, of Walla Walla.
Mr. Pentecost gives his political allegiance to the republican party, while fraternally he is identified with Trinity Lodge, I. O. O. F. and with Walla Walla Camp, No. 96, W. O. W. He and his wife and daughter are members of the Baptist church, of which he was a deacon for years and is now one of the trustees. The family is one of prominence in Walla Walla and the hospitality of the best homes of the city is freely accorded them. Mr. Pentecost has made for himself a very creditable position in business circles, ranking for many years as one of the leading wheat growers of this section of the state, and his life record constitutes an example well worthy of emulation.
GEORGE BENSON KUYKENDALL, M. D.
Dr. George Benson Kuykendall, one of the foremost physicians of eastern Washington, practicing at Pomeroy, was born near Terre Haute, Indiana, January 22, 1843, a son of John and Malinda (Stark) Kuykendall. The early family history is found in the New York Dutch Church or Dutch Reformed Baptismal records and in the county records of New York county. The family comes of Holland Dutch ancestry, the home being originally near Wageningen, in the Gelderland province, from which came the ancestors of Theodore Roosevelt. The first of the name in America was Jacob Luursen Van Kuykendael, who came to America on the ship de Princess from Holland in 1646 and landed at New Amsterdam, now New York. The Van in the family name was retained until about 1730. The ancestors were with the Van Rensselaer colony at old Fort Orange and afterward removed to Esopus, New York. Later the sons and daughters of that generation went to the Minisink region, on the Delaware, about 1700, and subsequently the branch of the family of which Dr. Kuykendall is a representative was founded in Virginia between 1743 and 1748, probably in the latter year. His mother came from the same ancestry as General John Stark of Revolutionary war fame, and their progenitors were originally from near Essen, Germany.
The father of Dr. Kuykendall, who was a mechanic, removed westward with his family when his son George was three years of age, residing in Wisconsin until 1852, when he crossed the plains to the Pacific slope. That was the memorable year of the cholera, smallpox and pestilence and they were delayed en route by illness and many difficulties. They found themselves far back in the rear part of the emigration. Their days were full of toil and anxiety and their nights were spent much of the time in vigils over the sick and dying or in warding against the prowling savages of the plains. When their train reached Snake river, their stock were almost famished and they crossed the river in the hope of finding better grass. From there they made their way over country never before traversed by wagons. At the crossing of the river the father became ill with mountain fever and a little daughter had already suffered from measles and was apparently growing worse. For weeks these helpless ones were dragged over the sagebrush and sand plains of southern Idaho in a rough emigrant wagon. Finally, when nearly all the stock had died, they abandoned their wagon, and the few household goods they could carry were put into the wagon belonging to a brother who was traveling in the same company. After almost incredible hardships and discouragements they reached The Dalles, Oregon, where they shipped their wagon and the household goods that remained upon an open barge and started to float down the Columbia. The father was still ill and the little sister at the point of death. That night the barge tied up on the Oregon side of the river and during the hours of darkness the mother kept tearful watch over the sick and wasted form of the father and her dying little girl, who about midnight passed away. Early in the morning a rude, improvised pine box was made ready and the little one was buried on the banks of Columbia, where the trade winds sweeping up from the ocean and the murmur of the river's flow are her eternal requiem. The pressing demands of the hour would not permit them to linger over the grave, but all had to press on, for they were far from their homeland and had no home or shelter for the coming winter. They reached the Cascades, passed over the portage and took a boat below, reaching the banks of the Willamette, where East Portland now stands, on the 19th of October, 1852.
The family spent their first winter at Milwaukee, above Portland, and in the fall of 1853 went to southern Oregon, locating near Roseburg. At a very early age Dr. Kuykendall manifested a taste for reading, which was encouraged by his father, who also found great delight in books. Dr. Kuykendall read with pleasure works on travel and discovery, exploration, history, biography and whatever he could find and as he approached manhood became very fond of metaphysical reading, delighting in poring over such writings as Kant, Abercrombie, Dugald Stewart and also reading works on mental philosophy. All this time he was pursuing the advanced studies of an academic and collegiate course and later took up the study of materia medica and medicine. About that time his father had a dangerous illness and reached the point where the attending physicians gave up the case. Dr. Kuykendall was not willing that his father should die, however, and said to the family: "We will go on and try still further—he may yet recover." This was before the son had become a student in medical college. He devoted himself assiduously to the study of his father's symptoms, scarcely leaving the bedside to eat or sleep for a week. The father recovered and enjoyed many years of later usefulness. The attending physicians, recognizing what the young son had accomplished, said: "Young man, it is clear what you ought to do in life. You should study and practice medicine."