Page:Pen Pictures of Representative Men of Oregon.djvu/180



140 •

highly satisfactory both to the postal department at Washington and the thousands of patrons of the office. The work has been carefully revised and systematized under his supervision, and its fast increasing business is dispatched with celerity and accuracy. Recent judicious investments have placed Mr. Steel on his feet once more in a financial point of view, and being still in the prime of life his future cannot well be otherwise than successful. He was married to Miss Eva Pope, of Oregon City, in 1869. As a man, he is universally esteemed ; as an officer, he is prompt and efficient, and as a friend, he will do to tie to.

COL. JOHN KELSAY.

There is, probably, no member of the bar in Oregon more Avell and favor- ably known than he whose name hei.<is this sketch, and a history of his career, such as it justly merits, would prove of deep interest to our read- ers. Having been a resident of Oregon for almost thirty years, lie is famil- iar, by active participation, with many of the most stirring events of pioneer life in this State. Space, however, permits the mention of but the very outlines of his history at the present time. Col. Kelsay was born in Wayne county, Kentucky, October 23, 1819, and moved with his parents to Missou.ri in 1829. He was the recipient of only the ordinary common school advan- tages of that early day, and commenced the study of law in 1842. In 1844 he was elected a member of the House of Representatives of that State. He obtained license to practice law at Jefferson City, Missouri, in the summer of 1845, since which time he has been continuously in the practice of his profession. He came to Oregon in 1853 and settled in the city of Corvallis, where he still resides. In February, 1856, he enlisted as a private soldier in the Oregon Volunteers, and served during the Indian war of that year, having been promoted first to the Captaincy of his company and then to the command of the Second Regiment Oregon Mounted Volunteers as its Colonel, which position he filled until the close of the war. He was a mem- ber of the State Constitutional Convention in 1857 from Benton county, and in 1868 was elected one of the Justices of the Supreme Court to fill the unexpired tej-m of the late Judge R. E. Stratton. In whatever capacity he has served, either in pubhc or private life, he has ever retained the unquali- fied respect and esteem of all with whom he came in contact, and, as a man of. unblemished integrity and unsullied character. Col. Kelsay has no supe- riors. He is still an active member of the legal fraternity and enjoys a lu- crative practice.

WILLIAM SARGENT LADD, Senior partner of the well-known banking houses of Ladd & Tilton, of Port- laud, and Ladd & Bush, of Salem, was born in Vermont in 1827. During his infancy his parents moved to New Hampshire, where at Tilton his father, who was a practicing physician, secured a very extensive practice. The subject of our sketch received the advantages only of a common school education, although he for a short time attended the Nortlifield Seminary. He was quick to learn, but after all did not particularly relish t