Carey, Charles Henry.  "History of Oregon." Chicago-Portland: Pioneer Historical
Pub. Co., 1922.  pg. 206.
 
DR. SAMUEL TOWERS LINKLATER

     Dr. Samuel Towers Linklater was born in the Orkney Islands off the coast of
Scotland in 1853.  His parents were William and Margaret (Stockand) Linklater.
For generations the family had been one of note on the Orkney Islands.  Asa
Linklater, the great-great-grandfather of Dr. Linklater, was a commanding figure
in social, church and civic life as was his son Hugh and his grandson Peter.
     Samuel Towers Linklater receiving his education in the schools of
Stromness, became a clerk and then a school teacher, and it was not until his
twenty-fifth year that he took up the study of medicine.  He graduated from the
University of Edinburgh in 1882 with the degree of M.B.C.M.  He practiced first
in the city of Leith, but in 1883 he determined to make his residence in
Australia.  While traveling across the United States he visited Oregon and was
so impressed with the scenic beauty and the climatic advantages of Washington
county that he decided to give up his trip to Australia and settle in Hillsboro.
Although he had graduated from the University of Edinburgh with highest honors,
Dr. Linklater never considered his education finished and he was always an
ardent student of his profession.  During the years 1891-2  he visited Europe
and took graduate courses under the most eminent scientists of Edinburgh,
Berlin, Vienna and other European centers of learning.  He was soon recognized
as one of the most competent physicians in Oregon, and was frequently urged to
establish himself in Portland, where he would find a wider field.  Dr. Linklater
refused all such suggestions, however, on the ground that the people of
Washington county were as much entitled to expert medical knowledge as those of
a large city.
     Dr. Linklater was a man of strong public spirit and deep benevolence.  His
reputation did not rest solely upon his medical proficiency, but also upon his
general kindliness and his progressive enthusiasm.  In 1886 he established the
Delta Drug Company in Hillsboro, which is still the leading pharmacy of the city
and with the same civic pride he edited and published the Hillsboro Independent.
Neither of these enterprises was entered upon for the lucrative gain accruing to
them but rather to lend a helping hand to the growth of his adopted home.
     At the height of his usefulness he was called one night to attend a patient
in an adjoining town.  Returning he attempted to board the midnight train to
Hillsboro.  The next morning his unconscious body was found beside the track and
his death resulted within a few days.  All Oregon mounded him as one of its most
able and distinguished physicians and its best loved and most unselfish
citizens.
     Dr. Linklater was married in 1886 to Eliza M. Sinclair, who died in 1889.
In 1898 he married Zula Harriett Warren, a native of Oregon and a daughter of a
highly esteemed family of Washington county.  They became the parents of six
children:  Francis W. Linklater, who served in the navy during eighteen months
of the World war and was overseas after the armistice and made five trips on a
transport.  He took his freshman year at Reed College of Portland and his
sophomore year at Pacific University; Margaret Ruth, a student of the University
of Washington; Dorothy, a student of Pacific University; Samuel Edward, who will
enter college this autumn; Kenneth Ashwell, a student in the Hillsboro high
school at the present time; and Ethel, a grade pupil.  Mrs. Linklater is a
musician of merit, and is the organist of the local Congregational church.  She
is active in church circles, but her chief claim to distinction is as a devoted
mother.  Since Dr. Linklater's decease she has lived for her children, who, a
happy combination of their mother's aesthetic and musical temperament and the
sturdy Scotch integrity of their father, have amply repaid her devotion.
     Dr. Linklater was a Mason of the thirty-second degree, a Shriner and a
Knight of Pythias, and was the regimental surgeon of the latter organization.
He was an honored member of the Oregon Medical Society and of the American
Medical Association.  Professionally and as a man, Dr. Linklater had no superior
and the Linklater name will be recorded on the pages of Oregon's history for
many generations.
 
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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in July 2005 by Diana Smith.  Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.