To Dr. and Mrs. Case have been born five children: Roberta L., who is a college graduate; Kenneth A., who is living upon the home ranch; Carl, who has passed away; Anna M., who is a high school graduate; and John Newton, who is now attending high school. Dr. Gose belongs to the Modern Woodmen camp in Dixie. His political allegiance is given to the republican party and while he was a resident of Pomeroy he served for two terms as mayor of that city. Mrs. Gose belongs to the Congregational church, in the work of which she takes an active and helpful part. They are very prominent people in this section of the state and the hospitality of the best homes is freely accorded them. They have a circle of friends almost coextensive with the circle of their acquaintance and they are both representatives of worthy pioneer families of the northwest, having resided in this section of the country for more than half a century. They have therefore witnessed the greater part of the growth and development of Walla Walla county, have seen tiny hamlets grow into prosperous cities, wild land converted into productive farms and all the natural resources of the country utilized for the benefit of man. Their aid and influence are always given on the side of progress and improvement and they advocate as well all those high standards which work for civic betterment.
CHARLES E. NYE.
Charles E. Nye, who is engaged in the harness and saddlery business in Walla Walla, winning for himself a creditable position in commercial circles, was born in Germany on the 3d of June, 1848, his parents being John N. and Elizabeth (Baker) Nye. They came to the United States in 1853, when he was a little lad of but five years, the family home being established in Marietta, Ohio, where the parents resided until they were called to their final rest, the father following the occupation of farming as a life work.
Charles E. Nye was reared to manhood on the old homestead farm and early became familiar with the work of the fields, to which he directed his attention during the summer months, while in the winter seasons he attended the common schools of the neighborhood. When his textbooks were put aside he found employment in a harness and saddlery shop at Marietta, Ohio, where he served a regular apprenticeship, and at the age of twenty-one years he started for the west, following the advice of Horace Greeley. He worked as a journeyman at his trade in Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, California and Oregon, thus working his way westward by successive stages until he reached the Pacific coast. In Oregon he was for a time engaged in business on his own account, conducting a harness and saddlery establishment at The Dalles. In 1878 he was in Walla Walla but did not locate permanently until 1883, at which time he engaged in business independently here and for the past thirty-five years he has been a dominant factor in the trade circles of the city. In all of his commercial relations he has been actuated by a progressive spirit and the excellence of the goods which he handles and the work he turns out has insured him a liberal patronage.
In 1890 Mr. Nye was married to Miss Tennie Brown, of Walla Walla. Mr. Nye is well known and popular in fraternal circles, holding membership in Blue Mountain Lodge, No. 13, F. & A. M.; Walla Walla Lodge, No. 287, B. P. O. E.; and Columbia Lodge, No. 90, K. P. He is also a member of the Walla Walla Commercial Club and cooperates in all of its plans and measures for the upbuilding of the city and the extension of its trade relations. His political allegiance is given the republican party, which he has supported since reaching adult age. His long residence in Walla Walla has made him largely familiar with its history and with its commercial development he has been closely and prominently associated. Those who know him, and he has a wide acquaintance, speak of him in terms of high regard, for he has been found thoroughly reliable in business; loyal and patriotic in citizenship and faithful in friendship. His life work has been intelligently directed and he has always continued in the line in which he embarked as a young tradesman, never dissipating his energies over a broad field but so concentrating his efforts and attention that substantial results have accrued.
W. D. LYMAN.
W. D. Lyman, author of this history, is a "native son of the Golden West," having been born at Portland, Oregon, on December 1, 1812. His father and mother, Horace Lyman and Mary Denison Lyman, came to California around Cape Horn, in a sailing ship from New York, in 1848-9. After a few months in California in the midst of the excitements of the gold discoveries they removed to Portland, then a straggling village on the edge of the dense forest which bordered the Willamette river. It is recalled by the children of the family that their mother told them about how in those early days she had heard the cries of the wolves and cougars in about the location of the present Portland Hotel and other stately structures of the present city.
As a boy Professor Lyman went with his parents to Dallas in Polk county, Oregon, and then to Forest Grove, Oregon, where his father was for a number of years a professor of mathematics, and later of history and rhetoric, in Pacific University, a pioneer college of those early days. Brought up in those pioneer surroundings, in the midst of the unconventional life and the sublime scenery of his native state, he received a permanent impress which has led him throughout his life to find his greatest interest in travel, mountain-climbing, investigation of the native and pioneer life of Old Oregon, and in writing and lecturing upon themes drawn from those early experiences. The old Oregon of Professor Lyman's boyhood was typically American—free, unconventional and sincere, and the wilderness about and the stimulus to adventure and enterprise implanted in the minds and spirits of the boys and girls of that pioneer region, as it has throughout the great west, is a certain union of the romantic and imaginative with the practical which has resulted in placing the Pacific states in the forefront of American communities.