The History of the Yakima Valley, Washington, Comprising Yakima, Kittitas and
Benton Counties, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1919, Volume II, page 16
A portrait of Henry B. Scudder appears in this publication.

HENRY BLATCHFORD SCUDDER.

The name of Henry Blatchford Scudder is inseparably interwoven with the record
of Yakima. He took the initial step in many works of progress in the community
and always stood for advancement and improvement. He figured prominently in
agricultural and financial circles and was ever recognized as a high type of
American manhood and chivalry. He was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, June 18,
1844, a son of Charles William and Alicia Harriet (Blatchford) Scudder, the
latter being a daughter of Henry Blatchford, who was a minister of the
Presbyterian church. The Scudder ancestral line is traced down from John Scudder
of Barnstable, Massachusetts. Born in England in 1619, he in 1635, came from
London to America, and located first at Charlestown, Massachusetts; in 1640 he
moved to Barnstable, Massachusetts, the home of his descendants. The Blatchfords
were also of an old colonial family that settled in New York, and one of the
well known representatives of this family was judge Blatchford, a distinguished
jurist. The line is traced back to the Rev. Samuel Blatchford, of England, and
his son, the Rev. Henry Blatchford, was the father of Alicia Harriet Blatchford,
who became the wife of Charles William Scudder. For many years the parents of
Mr. Scudder were prominent and well known residents of Brookline, Massachusetts,
where they remained until called to their final rest.

Henry Blatchford Scudder was a pupil in the Latin School of Boston under the
Rev. Phillips Brooks. He afterward continued his education in the Phillips
Academy at Andover, Massachusetts, and in Williams College. Following the
outbreak of the Civil war he responded to the country's call for troops and
enlisted as a member of Company A, Forty-fifth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry,
and while on active duty at the front was wounded in the head. He remained with
his regiment, however, until the close of the war. When the country no longer
needed his military aid he returned to the north and secured employment in the
Middlesex (Mass.) mills, and working his way upward in that connection became
manager of the woolen mills operated under the name of the Dudley Hosiery Mills.
Subsequently he returned to Brookline, Massachusetts, where he owned the Allston
Mills, near Boston, on what is now Commonwealth avenue. Eventually he sold out
his business there and in April, 1888, came to Yakima with his family. In
December, 1887, in association with C. E. Hubbard, of Boston, he had invested in
farm lands, purchasing six hundred acres on the Moxee four miles east of Yakima,
and from that time until his death was identified with the most progressive
measures leading to the substantial development and improvement of this section
of the state. Before leaving the east he shipped some Holstein cattle to the
Yakima valley, which were the first to be brought to this part of the country
for dairy purposes. He assisted in putting down the first artesian well in
Yakima county. He had one of the best dairies in the state, conducted along the
most scientific lines, and his business reached extensive proportions. About
1893 he opened a real estate office in Yakima which since his death has been
conducted by his son-in-law, C. A. Marsh. In that connection he built up a
business of large extent, negotiating many important realty transfers which led
to the upbuilding of the city as well as to the promotion of his individual
prosperity. Mr. Scudder was also one of those who developed the electric railway
and the heating plant at Yakima and for many years he served as a director of
the First National Bank. He erected the Barnes-Woodin building and there seemed
to be no line of beneficial activity in Yakima with which he was not more or
less closely associated.

On the 21st of April, 1866, Mr. Scudder was united in marriage to Julia Randolph
Perry. who comes of an ancestry equally honored and distinguished as his own.
She is a daughter of Oliver Hazard and Elizabeth Anne (Randolph) Perry, the
former a son of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the hero of the battle of Lake
Erie. They were residents of Newport. Rhode Island, and the father of Mrs.
Scudder served as a lieutenant in the United States navy until 1847, when be
turned his attention to the woolen manufacturing business, becoming one of the
prominent manufacturers of New England. He was descended from Edward Perry, who
came to America in 1650 and was of Quaker faith and a man of prominence in the
new world. Freeman Perry served in the Revolutionary war and was assistant
secretary of state of Rhode Island, while Christopher Champlain, a relative of
his wife, also aided in the struggle for American independence. Captain
Christopher Raymond Perry, father of Commodore Oliver H. Perry, served on a
man-of-war from 1780 until 1783. Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, who was born in
1785 and died in 1819, was a naval commander in the War of 1812, whose laconic
message, "We have met the enemy and they are ours," has gone down in history. He
was the father of Oliver Hazard Perry, who was born in 1815 and passed away in
1878. True to the record of his ancestors, he, too, responded to the call of his
country for military aid and was a veteran of the Mexican war. He married
Elizabeth Anne Randolph, a descendant of William Randolph, of Yorkshire,
England, who wedded Mary Isham and on coming to America settled at Turkey
Island, Virginia, since which time the name of Randolph has been closely
associated with the history of the south. Peyton Randolph, of Milton, Virginia,
wedded Lucy Harrison. a daughter of Governor Harrison of Brandon, and their
son, Richard Kidder Randolph, became the father of Elizabeth Anne Randolph, who
married Oliver Hazard Perry.

The children of Mr. and Mrs. Scudder were as follows: Mary Mosley, who died in
December, 1913; Marshall Sears, who served with the rank of captain in the
Spanish-American war and is now a captain in the Three Hundred and Sixty-first
Regiment of the Ninety-first Division, on active duty in France; Alice
Blatchford; Anne Randolph; Lucy Randolph; Bessie Perry; and Randolph Perry, a
commander in the United States navy.

In his political views Mr. Scudder was a stalwart republican but always refused
office. He took a most active interest in public affairs, however, and gave his
earnest support to all measures and movements for the general good. His
cooperation could at all times be counted upon to further any plan for public
progress along material, intellectual and moral lines. He passed away July 20,
1917, and in his death Yakima lost one of her most valued citizens. He had not
only been closely associated with her material development but with her moral
progress as well. He was one of those who established the Episcopal church of
Yakima, for which Edward Potter, brother of Bishop Potter, of New York, drew the
plans, and the communion service for the church was given by the Rev. Leonard K.
Storrs, of Brookline, Massachusetts. 

Mr. Scudder was a most active, earnest and helpful worker in the church as the
years passed by and for a long period served as senior warden. It is not
difficult to speak of him, for his life and his character were as clear as the
sunlight. No man came in contact with him but speedily appreciated him at his
true worth and knew that he was a man who cherished not only a high ideal of
duty but who lived up to it. He was not an idle sentimentalist but a worker. He
was at the head of large business interests, which he managed successfully, yet
it was his rule to set apart some time each day for the labors of love to which
he was so devoted.

********************************
Submitted to the Washington Bios Project in December 2007 by Jeffrey L. Elmer.
Submitter has no additional information about the subject of this article.