Gilbert, Frank T.  "Historic Sketches of Walla Walla, Whitman, Columbia and
Garfield Counties, Washington Territory; and Umatilla County, Oregon."
Portland, OR: Print & Lithographing House of A. G. Walling, 1882. p. a38.
 
E. A. TORRENCE

     Of Dayton, is among the prominent business men of Eastern Washington.
Although but thirty two years of age, he has accomplished more than a majority
of men do in a lifetime.  His father was a native of Springfield, Massachusetts,
emigrated to Illinois, and in 1847 to Oregon, where he married Mary J. Whitcomb.
She was a native of Vermont, had emigrated to Illinois and also to Oregon in
1847.  Her father, Lot Whitcomb, was well known for five years on the coast as a
prominent steamboat man and miller.  E. A. Torrence was born in Milwaukee,
Oregon, January 17, 1850.  He is the oldest of eleven children, the others being
William, Charles, Dale, Richard, Irene, Kate, Carrie, Hattie, Emma and Adda.
His education was confined to what could be obtained in the common schools of
Oregon in those days, and he attended them and worked on the farm until nineteen
years of age.  June 8, 1871, he married Martha Wright, who died on the twentieth
of March, 1872.  The same year he established a blacksmith shop in Whitman
county, W. T.  In 1874 he married Mary E. Phillips, of Portland, and the same
year established a large wagon and blacksmith shop in Dayton, W. T.  He followed
this business until 1880, when he turned his attention to land and stock.  Six
miles from Dayton he has a fine grain farm of 160 acres, and on the Palouse
river, in Whitman county, a fine stock ranch of 900 acres, on which are 170 head
of good horses.  He built a handsome residence in Dayton, which forms one of our
illustrations.  It is much finer than one would expect to see in a town but ten
years old.  His family consists of three children -- Esther, born March 10,
1875; William, January 27, 1877; Carrie, January 10, 1879.  Mr. Torrence is
strictly a self-made man, his present affluence being the fruit of his own labor
and energy.  He is a member of Columbia Lodge, No. 26, F. & A. M.  Politically
he is a Republican, and in no sense an office-seeker.

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Submitted to the WA. Bios Project in August 2006 by Diana Smith.

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.