Jens Anderson, a well known representative of industrial activity in Walla Walla, where he is now successfully conducting a wagon making shop, was born in Denmark, January 5, 1856, and is a son of Anders and Anna C. (Christenson) Jenson, both of whom were natives of that land, where they spent their entire lives. In their family were four children, of whom three are now living. These are Jens Anderson, of this review; Christ Anderson, a resident of Idaho; and Anne Sophie, who is still living in Denmark.
Jens Anderson was reared and educated in his native country and there learned the carriage and wagon making trade. Favorable reports reached him concerning the opportunities of the new world and in 1878, when a young man of twenty-two years, he bade adieu to friends and native country and sailed for the United States. He was located for a time in New Jersey and then continued on his westward way to Missouri, where he remained for eight years. On the expiration of that period he removed to Moscow, Idaho, where he resided until 1895. Throughout all this time he continued active in the wagon maker's trade and when he came to Walla Walla he started in business along the same line on his own account. He now has a splendidly equipped wagon shop and is doing a business of gratifying proportions. He is very energetic, is a man of persistent purpose, and his indefatigable effort has been the foundation on which he has built his success.
In 1882 Mr. Anderson was united in marriage to Miss Phoebe J. Davis, who was born in Missouri. They have become the parents of three children, Charles C., Nellie and Clarence D. That Mr. Anderson has prospered as the years have gone by is indicated in the fact that he is now the owner of an attractive residence and a substantial shop in Walla Walla, where he is living. He is highly respected as a man of genuine personal worth and one who in all matters of citizenship is loyal and progressive. In politics he is a republican.
GREEN SWINNEY.
Green Swinney is a retired farmer making his home in Pomeroy. A native of Indiana, he was born on Christmas day of 1841, his parents being Elijah and Hannah (Starks) Swinney. The father was a native of Virginia and in his boyhood removed with his parents to Indiana, where he attained his majority and was married. Later he became one of the early pioneers of Davis county, Iowa, his removal to that state occurring when his son Green was but an infant in arms. The father remained in Davis county until 1864 and then disposed of his property there, after which he crossed the plains with ox teams and wagon to Oregon, establishing his home in Lane county. There he spent eleven years and in 1875 made his way northward to what is now Garfield county, Washington. Within the borders of that county he took up a homestead, which he later turned over to his son James, who proved up on the property. The father resided upon that farm until his death and was widely known among the leading early settlers of his section of the state.
Green Swinney was reared and educated in Iowa, pursuing his studies in the public schools of that state. He was a young man of twenty-three years when he crossed the plains, driving one of the ox teams and thus making his way to a country which was to give him his opportunity. His school training had been limited to a few months' attendance in one of the old-time log schoolhouses of Iowa with its puncheon floor and slab benches, the methods of instruction being as primitive as were the furnishings. Upon his arrival in Oregon he began work as a farm hand and continued to work for wages until his removal to Washington in 1875. At that date he purchased a tract of railroad land in Columbia county, near Dayton, and four years later he disposed of that property and removed into what is now Garfield county, where he took up a preemption of one hundred and sixty-five acres eight miles east of Pomeroy. He resided upon that tract for a quarter of a century and his labors wrought a marked transformation in the appearance of the place, for he brought his land under high cultivation and divided it into fields of convenient size, annually gathering good crops. Year by year he carefully tilled the soil and became recognized as one of the representative farmers of his part of the state. In 1904 he left the farm and removed to Pomeroy, where he has since made his home, enjoying the fruits of former toil in a well earned rest.
RESIDENCE OF GREEN SWINNEY