Hunt, Herbert and Floyd C. Kaylor.  Washington: West of the 
Cascades.  Vol. III.  Chicago, S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1917.  
p. 157-158.

HOSS, CHARLES H., who is now so acceptably serving as justice of 
the peace in Centralia, is one of Washington's honored pioneers, 
having come to this state in 1877 when the greater part of Lewis 
county was wild and unimproved.  He was born in Wisconsin, April 16, 
1858, a son of Theodore and Clara (Kuppers) Hoss, who came to this 
country from Germany and first located in Wisconsin, where the father 
worked at the cooper's trade.  Later he removed with his family to 
Nebraska and in 1877 came to Little Falls, Washington, where he took 
up a homestead, residing therein for nine years.  About 1887 he became 
a resident of Centralia, where his last days were spent in retirement 
from active labor, and here he passed away in 1908.  His wife had died 
in 1897.
	Charles H. Hoss is the oldest of their five children.  As his boyhood 
and youth were mainly passed upon the frontier he had little opportunity 
to attend school and he is almost wholly a self-educated as well as a 
self-made man.  At an early age he began work in the lumber woods and 
later was in the employ of the Northern Pacific Railroad in the bridge 
and building department.  For several years he was subsequently engaged
in the timber business in Chehalis and in disposing of that he embarked 
in merchandising at Centralia, where he has since made his home.
	In 1887 Mr. Hoss was married in Centralia to Miss May T. Amler, a 
daughter of August Amler, who was an early settler and farmer of 
Thurston county, Washington.  Mr. and Mrs. Hoss have four children, one 
son and three daughters, namely: Mrs. Ethel Burdon; Maud M., a 
stenographer; Charles A., who is teaching school; and Ruth, who is 
attending high school.
	Mr. Hoss is a member of the Knights of Pythias fraternity and for three 
years was secretary of his lodge.  For about nine years he was also 
secretary of the Eagles, to which he belongs, and is a member of the 
Brotherhood of American Yeoman and the Commerical Club of Centralia.  
The democratic party finds in him a staunch supporter of its principles  
and upon his party ticket he has three times been elected justice of the 
peach, which office he is now filling with credit to himself and to the 
entire satisfaction of the general public.
	For forty years Mr. hoss has made his home in Washington and he has 
therefore witnessed almost its entire development for when he came to 
this region but few settlements had been made and the country was an 
almost unbroken wilderness.  He has watched with interest its growth and 
progress until it now ranks among the most prosperous state of the Union.

Submitted by: Jenny Tenlen

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Notice: These biographies were transcribed for the Washington Biographies
Project.  Unless otherwise stated, no further information is available on the
individual featured in the biographies.