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.
ALBERT D. STROUT was born in
York county, Maine, December 26, 1846. His father was Albert D. Strout,
a native of the same county and state, a merchant both in Maine and in
Boston, Massachusetts, who died at the early age of twenty-six years.
The mother of Mr. Strout was Hanna J. (Kimball) Strout, also a native of
Maine, in which state her father and mother were pioneer settlers.
Her ancestors came to Maine with the Pilgrim fathers.
Albert D. Strout was
reared through boyhood by his grandfather on a farm in York county.
In 1863 he went to the state of New Hampshire and for four years worked
in a bedstead factory. Then he went to Canada and engaged in the
sash and door manufacturing business. Returning to New Hampshire
he remained until the spring of 1870, when he came to California.
Here he remained eight years working at the carpenter's trade, and from
there came to Lincoln county. He came overland with a four-horse
team and wagon, and took a homestead in 1879 four miles southeast of Davenport,
where he still lives. He made the first wagon trail down Crab creek
and camped where Davenport now stands when the nearest house was distant
several miles. These were truly pioneer days in the Big Bend.
Mr. Strout came to the
country with limited means indeed, and now is the owner of a thousand acres
of improved land and a large amount of all domestic animals customarily
found on the up-to-date farm.
On October 25, 1874,
while a resident of California, Mr. Strout was married to Addie E. Kirk.
Her father was Joseph Kirk, a native of Virginia, who crossed the plains
with an ox team in 1850 and died in northern California; and her mother
was Samantha (Frost) Kirk, born in North Carolina and crossed the plains
with her husband. The brothers and sisters of Mrs. Strout are, Daniel,
Jiles, William, deceased, Mrs. Laura Coats, Mrs. Annie Griffith, and Ella,
deceased.
To Mr. and Mrs. Strout
have been born six children; Albert in Spokane, married to Lena Sawyer;
Addie V., married to George Lowery; Elena, married to Nelson Selde, of
Spokane; Mabel, a student of Davenport; Everet who died in infancy; and
Nellie, who died when an infant, also.
Mr. Strout is a prominent
Mason and a member of the order of Foresters of Davenport. He is
ranked among the most prominent citizens of his county. He is, indeed,
entitled to great praise for the progress he has made since coming to the
country a man absolutely without means, from which condition he has become
one of the wealthiest farmers of eastern Washington.
An incident illustrative
of the hardships through which Mr. Strout made his way in pioneer days
is that he borrowed a Mexican dollar, a keepsake of his child, from the
child to buy a sheep with since the family had had no meat for many days.
It was paid with the understanding it would be redeemed in the fall, but
when fall came he was utterly unable to redeem the dollar.