hammacke  
 

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.


     ELVIS E. HAMMACK, a prominent citizen and farmer residing three and one-half miles southwest of Moscow, Washington, was born May 24, 1847, in Anderson county, Tennessee, the son of Isaac and Frances (Rucker) Hammack.  The father was born and reared to manhood in the county of our subject's birth, and spent the last seven years in Knox county, Tennessee.  He died in 1870, aged forty-five years.  The Hammack family came originally from Spain, and some members of the family were soldiers during the Revolutionary War.  The mother, a lady of French ancestry, was also born in Tennessee of an old Virginia family.  She died in 1871.
     Our subject has one brother, James W., and two sisters, Mrs. Eliza Dew and Mrs. Nancy Bennett.  Mr. Hammack grew to manhood on a farm, and though deprived of a school education, he studied privately and succeeded in acquiring an education sufficient to entitle him to teach.  He taught his first school when a youth of eighteen years.  He enlisted in the federal army near the close of the Civil War, but was never mustered into service.  He mastered the carpenter's trade, at which he worked in his native state, in Denver, Colorado, where he went in 1872, and elsewhere.  In 1877 he came via San Francisco and Portland, to Linn county, Oregon, where he was first engaged in farming for ten years.  In 1884 he was elected on the Democratic ticket to the office of assessor of Linn county, and in 1886 he engaged in buying and selling grain both on commission. and for himself.  He also was engaged in this business for the Orondo Shipping company, of Moscow, Washington, for two years.
     During October, 1872, Mr. Hammack was married to Miss S. J. Wallace, a native of Tennessee, who died May 24, 1898, leaving one son, Roy W., a youth of more than ordinary promise.  He was a graduate from the Lebanon, Oregon, high school at the age of fourteen, and is now a student of the University of Oregon at Eugene.  He is making a fine record in school, expects to remain until graduation and ultimately to take up the study of medicine.
     Mr. Hammack was married to his present wife, Elizabeth (Schyff) McCoy Hammack, on May 15, 1901.  She is the daughter of John H. and Gertrude (Camp) Schyff, natives of Holland.  The parents of Mrs. Hammack both died in San Bernardino, California, whither they went with their family by way of New York and Panama in 1862.  She was married to John McCoy on June 24, 1884, in San Bernardino county, and came to this county in 1885.  He took the farm where Mr. and Mrs. Hammack now live as a homestead and made it his home until he died, January 12, 1900, aged forty-one years.
     Mr. and Mrs. Hammack, in addition to the original McCoy homestead, own three hundred and twenty acres of grain land near by.  The buildings, appointments, and out-of-door improvements are among the best in the county.  Mr. Hammack also owns a modern residence in Tallman, Oregan.
     Mr. Hammack is a member of the Masonic fraternity, in which order he has taken all the degrees up to and including the Knights Templar.  He has served his lodge as worshipful master.  In politics he is a stanch Democrat and for sixteen years was a member of the county central committee of his party.  Mrs. Hammack is a member of the Evangelical church.
 


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