Carey, Charles Henry. "History of Oregon." Vol. 3. Chicago-Portland: Pioneer Historical Pub. Co., 1922. pp. 187-8. WILLIAM J. McCREADY William J. McCready was born in Jones county, Iowa, February 27, 1875. His parents, Robert W. and Ellen (Gault) McCready, were prepared as teachers and taught in the schools of Wyoming, Iowa, and other places until 1872, when they located on a farm near Wyoming, Iowa, where they lived for many years. William McCready, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a pioneer in Iowa. Before the time of the railroads, he and his wife and two sons traveled by way of Burlington to Iowa City and settled there in the year 1844. The same year he fell a victim to the fever with which the country was infested and died. The family went back to the old home in Ohio, where the sons were educated and grew to manhood. Robert W. McCready went to Iowa again in 1870 but the balance of the family remained in Ohio. The McCreadys came to this country from Scotland and settled in or near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, about 1789, and many of the family live there at this date and at points nearby in Ohio. William J. McCready received his common school education in Oak Hill district school near the home farm. He attended one year the Savannah Academy in Ohio, a school that both his father and mother attended in their youth and of which an uncle was a trustee for forty years. He was graduated from Lenox College in Iowa in 1895, and from the law department of the University of Michigan in 1900 with the degree of LL. B. He practiced law in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, until 1903, when he became cashier of the Onslow Savings Bank, at Onslow, Iowa, an institution which he helped to reorganize and in which he was a stockholder and director. The same year Mr. McCready was married to Miss Mary Copeland, who had been a schoolmate of his at Lenox College. To them were born three children. The two sons, Joseph Robert and William Wick, are in school. The daughter, Marian, the youngest of the family, died at the age of fourteen months. In 1906 Mr. McCready finding that the confining work of the banking room was doing injury to his health, removed with his family to Perry, Iowa, where he became actively engaged in the retail lumber business as secretary of the Copeland Lumber Company, a position which he holds at the present time. In the year 1910 the Copeland Lumber Company sold its business in Iowa and its owners, consisting of Joseph Cope-land, the father of Mrs. McCready, his two sons, L. A. Copeland and J. W. Copeland, and W. J. McCready, came to Oregon and settled at Hood River and invested in the apple business. This move proved a bad one. All lost heavily. But in 1914 the same owners organized anew the Copeland Lumber Company in Oregon and have not only recovered their losses but have met with abundant success. The Copeland Lumber Company now has fourteen retail stores of lumber and has a paid up capital of over three hundred thousand dollars. W. J. McCready is known in Forest Grove as a good booster. He has served numberless times on the Commercial Club of the city, has been a member of the city council, and served as local chairman of the Liberty Loan drives. He is an Odd Fellow and a life member of the Knights of Pythias Lodge. Mrs. W. J. McCready was graduated from Lenox College and received the degree of Master of Science. She taught in that college for a number of years and was preceptress of Clarke Hall, the ladies' dormitory. She is a member of Chapter D of the P. E. O. sisterhood and is also a member of the Monday Club and takes an active interest in promoting the welfare of the schools of the community, but her chief delight is in the keeping of her home and in the education and training of her two sons. ******************* Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in November 2006 by Jeffrey L. Elmer. Submitter has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.