"A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of the City of
Seattle and County of King, Washington." New York and Chicago: Lewis Publishing
Co., 1903.  p. 310.
 
JOHN STEWART BRACE

     John Stewart Brace is the president of the Brace & Hergert Mill Company of
Seattle, extensively engaged in the manufacture of lumber and shingles. Canada
has furnished to the United States many bright, enterprising young men, who have
left the Dominion and entered the business circles of this country, with its
more progressive methods, livelier competition and advancement more quickly
secured. Among this number is John Stewart Brace. He has some of the strong,
rugged and persevering characteristics developed by his earlier environments,
which, coupled with the impulses of the Celtic blood of his ancestors, made him
at an early day seek Wider fields  in which to give full scope to his ambition
and industry. He found the opportunity he sought in the freedom and appreciation
of the growing western portion of the country. Though born across the border he
is thoroughly American in thought and feeling and is devoted and sincere in his
love for the stars and stripes. His career is identified with the history of
Seattle, where he has acquired a competence and where he is an honored and
respected citizen.
     Mr. Brace was born in Canada on the 19th of August, 1861, being of English
ancestry. Harvey Brace lived in Vermont when the Revolutionary war broke out,
and he was a captain on General Washington's staff during the war. His son
Bannister, born in 1764, moved to Auburn, New York, where Harvey Brace, the
grandfather of John Stewart, was born in 1808. This grandfather Brace moved to
Toronto, Canada, in 1829, where he established an edged tool factory, later
removing his industry to Goodrich, Canada. He married a Miss Fischer, a lady of
German ancestry, and in his later life went with his son Lewis John Brace to
Spokane, Washington, where he spent his remaining days, passing away at the ripe
old age of eighty-one years. By his marriage he had a large family, and the
children were reared in the faith of the Episcopal church, and as there was no
church of that denomination in the neighborhood in which they lived the
grandfather of our subject joined the Presbyterian church and remained
identified therewith until his death. He was a man of sterling worth and
unquestioned honesty.
     Lewis John Brace, the father of our subject, was born in Goodrich, Ontario
county, in 1838, and after arriving at years of maturity wedded Miss Mary
Gibson, a native of Ireland, who went with her parents to Canada when only five
years of age. Lewis John Brace became an extensive manufacturer of lumber and
was also engaged in contracting for and constructing public buildings, bridges
and roads. During a large portion of his residence in Canada he held the office
of Queen's magistrate in the town of Wingham, this being an office very similar
to that of justice of the peace in the United States. Removing westward to
Spokane, Washington, he was there largely engaged in stock-raising and later
turned his attention to the manufacture of lumber, but now he is retired from
active business and with his estimable wife resides in the city of Seattle.
During the whole of his business career he has been a prominent and reliable
man, honored for his upright business methods as well as for his public spirited
citizenship. He and his wife have had seven children, four of whom are yet
living.
     Of this number John Stewart Brace is the eldest. He pursued his early
education in the public schools of Ontario and afterward completed a course in a
collegiate institute in Gault. When seventeen years of age he joined his father
in the lumber business and came with him to Spokane, Washington, when twenty-two
years of age, in 1883, and since that time leas given his undivided attention to
the lumber business in the state of his adoption. For five years he was
connected with the Spokane Mill Company and in company with his father was
associated in conducting a mill outside of the city. In October, 1888, he came
to Seattle and has since been associated closely with the city and her
interests. Here he at first accepted the position of superintendent of the old
Western Mills Company, with which he remained until it was absorbed by the
Rainier Power & Railway Company, of which D. T. of a receiver and was closed out
by him. In 1895 Mr. Brace and his partner, Mr. Hergert, leased the property and
met with such excellent success in the conduct of their business that in 1899
they purchased the property and have refitted the plant with the latest improved
machinery. The capacity of the plant is now sixty-five thousand feet of lumber
in ten hours. They employ eighty men and have a large local demand for their
product. Under their able management the business has steadily increased and the
building is now worth seventy-five thousand dollars. Mr. Brace is a man of
superior business ability and has not limited his efforts to one line. He is
interested in several business enterprises and he has large logging interests,
and has acquired considerable city property.
     Mr. Brace was elected alderman of Seattle in 1892 and served for two years.
In 1890 he was united in marriage to Miss Kate Frankland, a native of
Providence, Rhode Island, and a daughter of James Frankland, who was of English
ancestry. They now have five children: Sarah Maude, Mary Eveline, Harry
Dominick, John Benjamin and Alice Mildred. The parents hold membership in the
Episcopal church and Mr. Brace is a valued member of the Independent Order of
Odd Fellows. They have a fine residence in Seattle and are very highly respected
citizens, while Mr. Brace is known as a successful business man. His life has
been one of continuous activity, in which he has been accorded his due share of
labor, and to-day he is numbered among the substantial residents of Seattle. His
interests are thoroughly identified with those of the northwest, and at all
times he is ready to lend his aid and co-operation to any movement calculated to
benefit this section of the country or advance its wonderful development.

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Submitted to the WA. Bios Project in March 2007 by Diana Smith.  Unless
otherwise stated, no further information is available on the individual featured
in the biographies.