Larrabeej  
 
 

Transcribed from "History of North Washington, an illustrated history of Stevens, Ferry, Okanogan and Chelan counties", published by Western Historical Publishing Co., 1904.


     JULIUS A. LARRABEE, postmaster of Chelan, Chelan county, a successful fruit raiser and a pioneer of the territorial days of Washington, was born in Lester, Addison county, Vermont, December 18, l841.  His father, Alva S., was a native of Ticonderoga, New York, descendant of an old American family.  His father was a soldier in the War of 1812, and the founder of the town of Larrabee, on Lake Champlain.  The mother, Marion (Enos) Larrabee, was born in New England, dying when our subject was but two months old.  The Larrabee family is of French Huguenot extraction, and settled in Connecticut in the seventeenth century.  The father's two younger brothers served in the confederate army during the Civil War.  They had located, when young, in Mississippi.  Our subject's father, shortly after the death of his wife, removed to Illinois, leaving the boy with his grandparents.
     In 1846 the family returned to Vermont, going thence to Wisconsin where they lived until our subject was nineteen years of age.  He enlisted in the First Wisconsin Cavalry, September 1, 1861, and was mustered out July 19, 1865.  He was present at the capture of Jeff Davis, and participated in forty-three battles and skirmishes.  At the close of the war he returned to Wisconsin, and five years filed on a soldier's homestead in Minnesota.  Driven out by grasshoppers he went back to Wisconsin, and in December, 1888, left Ripon, Wisconsin, arriving in Davenport, Washington in the same month, accompanied by his son, Frank T.  Both of them were afflicted with asthma.  The June following they came to Lakeside, Chelan county, and engaged with the Lake Chelan Lumber Company.  He had worked for the manager, L. H. Woodin, in Wisconsin.  Our subject conducted the hotel for the company, the pioneer hotel of the place.  He had pre-empted a claim on Chelan river, but when he decided to commute discovered that the land was open only to homestead.  His son then filed on it, was contested by Indians, and he lost the best forty acres.  The two now own forty acres which is cultivated.  In June, 1898, Mr. Larrabee was appointed postmaster.  He owns a two-story house and four lots in town.
     Our subject has four half brothers, Eric, Edward, Aii and Burt; and one half sister, Edna, wife of Lemuel Richardson.  May 15, 1864, he was married, at Ripon, Wisconsin, to Delphia A. Rich, born in Addison county, Vermont.  Her father, Russell, was a native of Vermont, her mother, Lydia (Bowker) Rich, was a native of New York.  They have four children, Edson, Earl, Frank and Blanche.  Our subject is a member of Harrison Post G. A. R., of which he was organizer and is now commander.  He is a member of Chelan Valley Lodge No. 118, A. F. & A. M., and was first W. M. under dispensation and first W. M. elected.  He is a Republican and staunch.
 
 


 

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