Gaston, Joseph.  "The Centennial History of Oregon, 1811-1912."  Vol. 2. 
Chicago, Clarke Publishing Co., 1912. p. 512.
 
SAMPSON S. START

     who came to Oregon in 1896, has since been numbered among the prominent
citizens of Baker county and for several years has maintained offices at Sumpter
and Baker for the conduct of a general insurance, bonding and real-estate
business. His birth occurred in Green county, Wisconsin, on the 3d of May, 1866.
His father, Sampson S. Start, Sr., was born in Devonshire, England, in 1828, and
was brought to Utica, New York, when five years of age. At the age of
twenty-five he wedded Catherine White, of Clinton, New York. Prior to the
outbreak of the Civil war he removed with his family from New York to Wisconsin,
being there engaged in general agricultural pursuits near Edgerton. When the
Union was threatened he enlisted in its defense at Madison, Wisconsin, joining
Company H, Thirty-eighth Volunteer Infantry, with which command he remained
until the close of hostilities. When the country no longer needed his military
aid he returned to Wisconsin, there remaining until 1876, when he took up his
abode in Cherokee county, Iowa. In 1882 he removed to Rock county, Minnesota,
where his demise occurred in 1896. He was always at the front in the field of
new thought and action and spent most of his life, with his wife and five
children, in developing new farms and new localities.
     Sampson S. Start, Jr., was graduated from the high school of Luverne,
Minnesota, in 1888, and subsequently attended the University of Minnesota at
Minneapolis for two years. While yet a student in that institution he was
nominated by the Farmers' Alliance party for the office of county superintendent
of schools, to which he was elected and afterward reelected in 1892, serving in
that capacity until January, 1895. He had previously gained experience in the
educational field as a teacher in the public schools of Rock county, Minnesota,
and thus was well qualified to undertake the work devolving upon him as county
superintendent of schools there, which office he held from 1891 until 1895. In
1889 he had held the office of assessor of Rock county. It was in 1896 that he
established his home in the northwest, coming to Oregon as the superintendent of
the Ohio Mining Company. Later he served the city of Sumpter, Oregon, as city
recorder and superintendent of public schools. He also gave considerable time to
prospecting in Oregon, Utah, Nevada and Alaska. At present he is connected with
several mining properties in Oregon, Nevada, Idaho and Alaska and interested in
projects for the reclamation of Oregon desert lands. For the past several years
he has maintained offices at Sumpter and Baker, Oregon, conducting a general
insurance, bonding and real-estate business. A man of keen discernment, sound
judgment and excellent business ability, he has met with a gratifying measure of
success in his undertakings and is well entitled to a place among the
substantial and representative citizens of the Sunset state.
     In 1895, at Elgin, Iowa, Mr. Start was united, in marriage to Miss Gay
Bryant, a second cousin of William Cullen Bryant. They have one son, Harold B.,
who was born in 1899. Since 1895 Mr. Start has given his political allegiance to
the socialist party. He has always been a loyal and public spirited citizen and
while a resident of Minnesota served in the National Guard for five years. From
1903 until 1906 he acted as city recorder and police judge of Sumpter, Oregon.
He is a valued member of the Baker Commercial Club and has fraternal relations
too numerous to mention. In religious faith he is a Spiritualist. In his
business life he has sought enlarged opportunities and wider scope for his
activities but without infringement upon the rights of others, and to his name
there is attached no stigma of reflection because of any employment of methods
that will not bear close investigation and scrutiny.


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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in April 2007 by Diana Smith. Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.