Claytona
Transcribed from "History of North Washington, an illustrated history
of Stevens, Ferry, Okanogan and Chelan counties", published by Western
Historical Publishing Co., 1904.
ALBERT P. CLAYTON is one of the
live business men of Wenatchee, Chelan county, of influential personality
and an important factor in all public and municipal enterprises.
He was born in Rome, Richland county, Ohio, June 14, 1846, the son of Lambert
D. and Evelina (Booth) Clayton. He is a second cousin of Powell Clayton,
United States Minister to Mexico and one of the prominent Republican statesmen
of Arkansas. Lambert D. Clayton was a native of South Carolina, of
English ancestry. He died in Spring Green, Wisconsin, in 1864.
The mother was born in Holmes county, Ohio, and passed away at Chillicothe,
Missouri, in 1901.
Our subject was reared in Wisconsin, whither
his family moved, and until he was eight years of age he attended the public
schools in his neighborhood. From his father he learned the trade
of a harness maker. He was a patriotic youth, and in 1862, enlisted
in the Sixth Wisconsin Light Artillery, otherwise known as the Buena Vista
Battery, in which he served until the close of the Civil war, being mustered
out July 18, 1865. He participated in thirteen regular engagements,
was taken prisoner twice, and escaped each time.
For many years following the war he was engaged
in railway service. In 1865 he was with the Milwaukee & Mississippi
Railway Company, remaining two years and ten months as fireman and five
years as engineer. He was then employed as conductor of freight and
passenger trains, until 1889, on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul,
Prairie du Chien, I. & D. division. Resigning in that year he
came to Washington and located, February 12, 1889, in the vicinity of Ellensburg.
The following year he was freight conductor on the Cascade division of
the Northern Pacific, and on May 1, 1890, he accepted the position of superintendent
of construction on the Gray's Harbor & South Bend railroad. In
September, 1894, he was a passenger engineer on the Pacific division of
the Northern Pacific railroad, between Tacoma and Portland. On September
9, 1894, he drove a spike, the farthest west in the United States, at Ocosta,
the terminus of the road.
In December, 1900, Mr. Clayton came to Wenatchee,
and engaged in the real estate, insurance and loan business. One
year from that time he built large safe deposit vaults, burglar proof,
with twenty-four inch walls, and eighty-six steel boxes. He employs
night watchmen, and the enterprise has become quite popular in Wenatchee.
Mr. Clayton carries about seventy-five per cent of the fire insurance in
Wenatchee. His home is a beautiful seven-room cottage, surrounded
by five lots, in Nob Hill addition. He also owns the business building
and lot adjoining O. D. Johnson's. It was Mr. Clayton who brought
the Entiat mining district into prominence, forming a company for its development.
He has one brother, Mahlon, a mining man of Valdez, Alaska, and one sister,
Rachel, wife of William Brown, a boiler-maker, of Chillicothe, Missouri.
Our subject's first wife was Miss Lizzie Gault,
to whom he was married at Ithaca, Wisconsin, December 24, 1866. She
died July 7, 1869, leaving one child. On October 15, 1873, at Boscobel,
Wisconsin, he was united in marriage to Josephine M. Scheble, of Ashley,
Ohio. She was the daughter of Albert and Rebecca (Knapp) Scheble,
the former a native of Switzerland, the latter of New York. They
both live at Centralia, Wisconsin. Four children have been born to
Mr. and Mrs. Clayton, Howard J., Ida M., Dora B. and Alta M.
Our subject is a member of Palestine Lodge
No. 114, A. F. & A. M., Lone Rock, Wisconsin, Wenatchee Chapter No.
22, R. A. M., is Past Department Commander of Wisconsin, G. A. R., a member
of the National Encampment, and Past Master Workman of the A. 0. U. W.
Although not an active partisan he is a Republican and takes a lively interest
in the political issues of the day. From 1878 until 1885, he was
a supernumerary in the secret service of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St.
Paul railroad.
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