Page:Pen Pictures of Representative Men of Oregon.djvu/49



REPKESENTATIVE MEN OF OREGON.

nent features, penetrating eyes and a well-shaped head. He occasionally indulges in debate, but is not given to airing his eloquence and is highly esteemed by all who know him.

HON. ENOCH HOULT.

Although naturally of a retiring disposition, no member of the Senate of 1882 was better posted on those subjects of paramount importance than was Hon. Enoch Hoult, of Linn county. As a citizen of our commonwealth he is universally esteemed; as a Democrat he possesses the entire confidence of his party, and as a legislator he is an active, energetic worker. He is a Virginian by birth, having first seen the late of day in Monongahela county in 1820. He turned his attention to farming and stock-raising, having but few educational advantages. His parents moved to Edgar county, Illinois, in 1832, and here Mr. Hoult found a life partner in the person of Miss Jen- nett Sommerville, to whom he was married in 1842, and whom he still sur- vives, she having passed away in April, 1878. He came across the plains in 1853 and settled in Lane county, about ten miles north of Eugene City, con- tinuing his vocation as a farmer. In 1863 he moved to Harrisburg, in Linn county, where he has resided ever since. He represented Lane county in the Constitutional Convention in 1857, and was elected State Senator from Linn county in 1870, serving his constituency faithfully. He followed the business of stock-raising with great success in Eastern Oregon. He has just served the first session of his second term. Politically speaking he is a Democrat, but not unnecessarily partisan in his views. He is a promi- nent member of the Masonic order and attained high honors in its various branches. He has a family of seven children, but one of which is of the male pursuasion; three of his daughters being married. He is a man of low stature, well-built, with pleasant features partially covered with a beard which, in sympathy with his hair, is slightly tinged with gray.

HON. JACOB VOORHEES,

The Senator from Marion, was born in Montgomery county. New York, on the 25th day of May, 1841. The greater part of his early life was spent on his father's farm, he receiving meanwhile the benefit of a very fair education by attendance at the common schools of his native place and a three years course of instruction in the academies of Schenectady and Clavwack. He engaged in school teaching for a year or more at Hogan's Mills, in that State, and in 1865 went to Minnesota, where, for about three years, he was engaged in the general merchandising birsiness at Rochester and Minneap- oHr. He returned to New York in 1868, where he continued to reside until coming to Oregon in 1872. He settled on French Prairie, in Marion county, and engaged in farming. He took an active interest in agricultural pur- suits and associated himself with the Grange organization, in which he has sustained prominent and important standing. His intelligence and integ- rity at once commanded the respect of his neighbors, and in 1882 he was put forward as a candidate for the State Senate. With his colleagues he

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