Squiref
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.
FRED B. SQUIRE was born in Illinois,
on June 25, 1868. His parents, Henry and Elizabeth (Guy) Squire,
were prominent and well educated people and both died when our subject
was four years of age. Being thus early cast out in life, he was
bound to a man who kept him for ten years, then owing to the separation
of him and his wife, our subject gained his freedom and came west to Kansas.
He labored during the summers and went to school in the winters for four
years, thus gaining a good fair education. It was 1886 when he came
to Washington and the following year he made a tour of the Big Bend country
with a team and wagon, looking carefully over the entire section.
In 1889, he filed on a homestead one half mile from where Almira now stands.
Like many of the old pioneers of this country, he had to leave his place
and work in the harvest fields of Palouse and Walla Walla to gain finances
for its improvement. He continued steadily at his labors until 1894
when he entered the employ of Mr. Keller, a general merchant of Almira.
For six years he was a salesman of this establishment and during this time
he sold his homestead and bought one hundred and sixty acres of fruit land
on the Columbia river. In 1900 Mr. Squire entered the real estate
business and has been more or less connected with that since. In
1902, he was nominated for county clerk, in Lincoln county, on the Democratic
ticket. Out of one hundred and twenty-eight votes in his home precinct,
he received one hundred and fourteen. Mr. Squire has been giving
his attention largely of late years to handling fruit. He has on
his farm, twenty-five acres set to five varieties of winter apples and
he has made a marked success as he has now the finest winter apple orchard
in his vicinity. He has a beautiful residence in Almira, a block
of twelve lots, besides other property.
In 1890, Mr. Squire married Miss Mamie Bosworth,
a native of Missouri. She came to Washington with her parents when
a child and was educated and raised at Waitsburg, being a graduate of the
high school. Her parents were J. W. and Matilda Bosworth, prominent
pioneers of the Waitsburg country. To Mr. and Mrs. Squire, five children
have been born Herman A., Oscar J., Albert, Bernice A., and Dessie F.
Mr. Squire is one of the most popular men of this section of the country
on account of his geniality and uprightness and he has hosts of friends
all through the Big Bend country. He has ever labored for the upbuilding
and advancement of the country and has certainly done commendable work
in the lines in which he has wrought.
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