shornoj
Transcribed from "An Illustrated History of The Big Bend Country, embracing
Lincoln, Douglas, Adams and Franklin counties, State of Washington",
published by Western Historical Publishing Co., 1904.
JOHN C. SHORNO came to Ritzville
in 1896 and erected a livery and feed barn. He conducted this business
for six months when he sold out, and in July, 1897, was appointed city
marshal and served in this capacity for eighteen months. In 1900
he was elected on the Democratic ticket to the office of sheriff of Adams
county, and in 1902 was re-elected by the greatest majority of votes ever
polled for any candidate in the county, and he carried every precinct.
John C. Shorno was born in Michigan, May 24,
1854. His father, Anton Shorno, a native of Switzerland, came to
the United States in 1836, remained a year in the state of New York and
came to Michigan where he was a pioneer farmer in Allegan county.
He was a prominent and influential citizen, and a stanch Democrat.
While here he served as a school director and as county treasurer, and
died on the old homestead in March, 1879, at the age of seventy-five years.
Our subject's mother was Phoebe C. (Fixley) Shorno, a native German, who
was married in her native country came to the United States with her husband,
and died in Michigan in 1860.
The first twenty-three years of Mr. Shorno's
life were spent in his native state, where he grew up on a farm and received
a district school education. In 1877 he came to the vicinity of Salem,
Oregon, where he worked on a farm for eighteen months then came to Colfax,
in the vicinity of which city he lived on a farm for eleven years, then
removed to Colfax where he conducted a bakery for two years. In 1890
he disposed of his homestead in Whitman county, purchased a drove of horses,
removed to a ranch ten miles northeast of Ritzville, Adams county, and
entered the stock raising business. His next move was to the city
of Ritzville. He has since disposed of all his improved land, but
still owns four sections of raw land in Douglas county, thirty acres of
unimproved but irrigated land in Yakima county and two hundred acres of
grazing land on Cow creek, Adams county, which he took as a desert claim.
His city property includes a one story brick business block and a handsome
home in Ritzville.
Mr. Shorno has four brothers and three sisters
living: Andrew D.; Lewis C.; Oscar S.; Millard F.; Maria, wife of J. R.
Smith; Alice, wife of J. H. Purdy; and Tabitha, wife of Charles A. Granger.
On June 19, 1881, Mr. Shorno was married at
Moscow, Idaho, to N. Evaline White, a native of Eugene, Oregon, and daughter
of Cornelius G. and Mary F. (Boydston) White. Her father crossed
the plains to Oregon in 1851, later removed to Whitman county, Washington,
where he was a pioneer, a prominent citizen, county commissioners and the
first superintendent of schools. He died at Colfax in the winter
of 1901, aged seventy-five. Mrs. White was a native of Kentucky,
who crossed the plains in an early day with her parents and was married
in Oregon. Mrs. Shorno has three brothers and three sisters: John;
Edwin G.; Warren; Lulu, wife of J. R. Richardson; Anna, wife of T. D. Conner,
mayor of Wallace, Idaho; and Myrtle, wife of August Paulsen, one of the
principal owners of the Hercules mine, Wallace, Idaho. Mrs. Conner
has served two terms as treasurer of Shoshone county, Idaho.
Mr. and Mrs. Shorno have one child, Clyde,
aged twenty, now a student.
Mr. Shorno is a past grand of Ritzville lodge,
I. O. O. F., and a member of the Woodmen of the World.
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