"Portrait and Biographical Record of Portland and Vicinity, Oregon." Authors: "a compilation of this work....by a number of writers". Chapman Publishing Co; Chicago, 1903. p. 829. JOHN C. CARSON The name of John C. Carson is one of the most illustrious in the annals of Oregon's growth and prosperity. Few men have had so large a capacity for labor, or are so wise in its distribution and application. continuously since September 1, 1851, he has made his home in Portland, and in the meantime his efforts have been of the enduring kind, and have been endorsed by a splendid and inspiring citizenship, touching many interests. He started, and for many years maintained, the first steam equipped planing mill and sash and door factory north of San Francisco, and one which eventually became the greatest upbuilding factor of this town. He is one of the few men who organized the Republican party in this state, and he served for twenty-two years in the state legislature. No better guarantee could be required of his all around fitness, nor continued consideration of his fellowmen. To follow the career of Mr. Carson is to study one who worked with greater care, greater wisdom and secured larger results than the average; one who not only availed himself of existing opportunities but created many not observable to the casual passer-by. Mr. Carson was born in Center county, Pa., February 20, 1825, and claims Scotch-Irish paternal ancestry. His family were represented in America long before the Revolutionary war. In this momentous contest three brothers bearing the name served in the commissary department, and also assisted in the transporting of troops. James Carson, son of one of these brothers, was the father of John C., and his mother was Sarah (Crosthwaite) Carson, the latter of French ancestry but born in Wales. Mrs. Carson's father was a manufacturer during his active life, and in Reading, Pa., was the owner and operator of one of the first paper mills in this country. The parents were married in Pennsylvania, and in 1834 removed with their children to Richland county, Ohio, about 1853 going to near Galesburg, Ill., where the father died at the age of sixty-one. He was a natural mechanic, and in early life qualified as a millwright, following that trade for many years. His wife survived him until seventy-seven years old, her death occurring in Galesburg, Ill., in 1864. All of their eight children were born in Center county, Pa., and all attained maturity. James Calvin, the youngest of the family, enlisted in the Union army during the Civil war, and died as an orderly in the Forty-seventy Illinois Volunteer Infantry. David R. came to Oregon in 1852, married and lived in Portland for many years, worked at his trade of carpenter and millwright, and died leaving a daughter, Minnie A., now living in Portland. A daughter, Mary, came to Portland, where she married Joseph H. Kibling, and after his death returned to Ohio, where the remainder of her life was spent. Yet another son, William Porter, a graduated of Alleghany College and a theological school, entered the Presbyterian ministry; he died of exposure in the state of Illinois. Johnson H., the oldest in the family, passed away in 1902 at the age of eighty-three, in Galesburg, Ill., of which town he was a pioneer and well known resident. Oliver Perry, the third eldest, died at his home in Dayton, Ohio. An uncle of these children, Robert Crosthwaite, emigrated to Mansfield, Ohio, at an early day, and started the first newspaper in that part of the country. Educated in the public schools of Ashland county, Ohio, Mr. Carson entered Ashland Academy in 1846, and for three years was under the able tutorship of Professor Andrews, afterwards a brigadier-general in the Union army, and the president of Kenyon College, from which President Hayes graduated. During his academy course Mr. Carson paid his tuition by working at the carpenter's trade, at which he had previously labored. After leaving school he studied medicine under Dr. Kinnaman of Ashland, Ohio, going deeply into the mysteries and intricacies of medical and surgical science. So interested was he that he read about all the books on medical science then in use and was qualified to practice, although he never received a diploma. The doctor and his pupil became warm friends, and in 1850 came to California together, intending to start a hospital in San Francisco. They reached San Francisco on the steamer which brought the news of California's admission to the Union. Mr. Carson became very ill before he reached his destination and soon after the doctor was taken ill with the mountain fever. Taken all in all, their discouraging adventures prevented the fulfillment of the original project, and each decided to go his separate way. Mr. Carson mined for a time on the middle fork of the American river, and from there went to the Redding diggings, where he established a hotel on the Trinity mountains. This hostelry was known as the Mountain House, and its location was unrivaled, being on the trail of miners who packed over the mountains. A sign of large dimensions ornamented the front of the inn, announcing in unmistakable terms that the hungry would have to pay $1 for satisfying the inner man. After conducting this house for six months Mr. Carson retired from the management and soon after fell ill, and the amount made in the hotel diminished rapidly. Alone in a strange country, he recalled a conversation he had had in the old days with one Noah Huber, who, upon his return to Ohio from Oregon, gave glowing accounts of the advantages of Oregon. Accordingly, he set sail for Portland, and reached the town with very low finances. Fortunately he found work soon after landing, through the kindly interest of H. W. Corbett, and assumed the management of the hardware store of G. W. Vaughn. A few months later he walked from Portland to Foster, at the western terminus of the Barlow road, and engaged as a school teacher, his salary to be $25 a month. He was obliged to look around for a place to hold the school, and, finding a cabin which had been used by some settler for a winter residence, he made it habitable and homelike and started in with sixteen scholars. However, he had no books, and the people who had hired him began to quarrel over the transaction, and he took his departure at the end of two weeks. After this experience he floated on a raft with another man from Church's Mill to the Clackamas bridge, making the journey in two and a half hours, a feat never before nor since performed. In Oswego he worked at the carpenter's trade for $4 a day, sixteen months later arriving in Portland. He engaged in contracting, and Dekum & Bickel's store on Front street was the first building he constructed, furnished the timber for the same. The milling experience of Mr. Carson began in 1857, and followed a period of successful contracting in Portland. He had just completed the erection of Amos King's residence, and with his brother he fitted up a planing mill, operating the same under the firm name of J. C. and D. R. Carson. This was the first steam equipped planing mill north of San Francisco, and around it centered the pioneer milling business of the northwest. In 1861 Robert Porter became identified with the enterprise, he taking charge of the outside, and Mr. Carson assuming control of the inside business. The trade increased so steadily that more machinery and greater capacity were required anywhere in the country. In 1872 the partnership was dissolved by mutual consent, and after that Mr. Carson managed the business independently, devoting his entire time to it, and maintaining an unequalled management. The output of the mill was enormous for its day, yet the capacity never equaled the demand. In the meantime Mr. Carson had been doing a great deal of business through the Holliday Company, and in 1894 he turned his business over to them, and has since been practically retired from active life. Mr. Carson built his present home in 1881, and this was one of the first residences to go up in the western part of the town. He has been one of the most interested spectators of the all around growth of the city, and to no one is Portland more indebted for a helping hand. No streets or sidewalks had been laid when he first came here, and it was his lot to build the first sidewalk in the town, the city council of 1854, of which he was a member, having authorized the building of walks on different streets, and as Mr. Carson owned property on Salmon street he laid the first walk to demonstrate what was meant by the city ordinance. A member of the town council on may occasions, he was president for one term, and his sage and reliable advice invariably resulted in radical reforms. Under the school law as enforced today, a meeting was called to consider the erection of a new school building, and also the purchase of a lot. Mr. Carson put the motion, and Mr. Porter seconding it, it was finally carried in the face of serious and strenuous opposition. Needless to say, the lot was purchased and the building, afterward known as the "Central School," was erected. During the pending of the claims by the Hudson Bay Company he was one of a board of experts appointed by the government to investigate said claims, and to report to the United States courts of Oregon. This was in 1868, and Jesse Applegate and Major Rynearson were the other members of the board. In the early, as in later days, he took a keen interest in politics, and his devotion to Republican principles has been one of the strongest and most influential weapons with which he has forged community fetters around him. During his years of service in the state legislature, including six years in the house and eight years in the senate, during the period from 1870, when he was first elected, to 1892, when he retired, Mr. Carson carried forward many notable bills, and his advocacy made possible the erection of the new penitentiary at Salem and the State Insane Asylum. Prior to this time the state had paid private parties for taking care of the state's insane. In 1887 Mr. Carson was elected president of the Senate and he was chairman of the Ways and Means committee of the Senate of the fifteenth and also the sixteenth regular session. He has been a delegate to innumerable town, county and state conventions, and his wide knowledge of political affairs has caused his counsel to be sought on all important occasions. His broad minded grasp of the needs of the community has inspired the assurance that the welfare of the people could rest in no safer or wiser hands, and thus he was returned to his responsible post again and again, receiving as time went on greater and more gratifying assurances of his constituents' regard. His influence has been equally marked in philanthropic and religious circles, and few enterprises of a humanitarian nature but have received the stamp of his approval. He was a member of the first Congregational Church in the city, but though subscribing to the tenets of this denomination, he has contributed towards the erection of churches of all faiths. Few men entertain such broad and liberal views, or more clearly and disinterestedly see the good in institutions and men. As a recent writer has said: "A parallel might be drawn between the life of Mr. Carson and the history of Portland, the two having started from small beginnings and both having accomplished great things. The poor young man of energy and ability; the embryo city, with its possibilities all unknown, have run an emulative race, both an honor to the state and to the world." Mr. Carson has found relief and recreation from the stress of business life in various fraternal lodges, and has been identified with the Masons since 1860. He is now a member of the Willamette Lodge, the Portland Chapter, R.A.M., and the Scottish Rite. Through his marriage in 1854 with Elizabeth Talbot, a pioneer of 1851, Mr. Carson has a daughter, Luella Clay Carson, a woman of intellectual brilliancy, who, after study at Mills College, Cal., and graduating at St. Helen's Hall, Portland, assumed the professorship of English in the Oregon State University. Mrs. Carson died in 1860, and in July, 1861, Mr. Carson married Mrs. Eliza Ann Northrup, a native of Indiana, who had one child by her former marriage, Frank E., now deceased. To Mr. and Mrs. Carson were born four children, viz: Rose M., who married Eugene Sturgis, and is the mother of two sons and one daughter; Elizabeth, educated in Portland and at Mills College, Cal.; John Dolph, a graduate of Yale college, and engaged in the wholesale supply business under the firm name of Northrop, Sturgis & Company; and Frances D., wife of Robert Treat Platt, educated in Portland and at Miss Day's private school of New York City. Mr. Platt is an attorney of Portland. Mrs. Carson died in June, 1901, at the age of sixty-eight years. Everything connected with the life of Mr. Carson bespeaks the broad minded, intelligent and substantial citizen, imbued with an appreciation of mental training, of ability, progress, and enlightenment. ******************* Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in January 2007 by Diana Smith. Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.