Gunnison County CO Archives Biographies.....Easterly, Lewis H.   November 1852 - ?
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Judy Crook jlcrook@rof.net December 20, 2005, 12:35 am

Author: Progressive Men of Western Colorado

      While Lewis H. Easterly is prominently identified with and actively

engaged in the ranch and stock business of western Colorado, and is winning a

substantial prosperity in it, that line of activity does not constitute the

whole of his title to esteem and consideration as one of the essential factors

in the development and progress of the section in which he lives.  His interest

in the cause of public education here and elsewhere has been of prime importance

to the people around him and has resulted in the establishment of the

educational forces of his community on a broad and stable basis.  His life began

at Murphysboro, Illinois, in November, 1852, and he is the son of Philip and

Sarah (Jones) Easterly, the former a native of Greenville, Tennessee, and the

latter of Columbus, Ohio.  The father was a blacksmith and machinist by trade

and also followed farming.  He died in 1897, aged eighty-two.  His wife preceded

him to the better world nearly thirty years, dying in 1868, aged thirty-seven. 

Their son Lewis remained at home until he reached his twenty-second year, aiding

on the work of the farm and in his father’s shop, and eagerly employing the

limited opportunities for education at his disposal.  On starting out in life

for himself he taught school for six years and attended the Illinois State

University in the intervals between the terms of his teaching to secure a higher

degree of efficiency.  In 1878 he came to Colorado and during the next three

years taught school in Douglas and El Paso counties.  At the end of that period

he settled on the ranch of three hundred and twenty acres which he now owns and

occupies, located about seven miles north of Gunnison.  Here he at once began to

take an active interest in the affairs of the community and to give his

attention especially to the enlargement and improvement of the school facilities

of the neighborhood, building the first schoolhouse on Ohio creek, along which

his ranch is located, and becoming secretary of the local school board, a

position he has held for twenty-five years.  Being a practical teacher, he has

been able to see the needs and find the means of providing them to make the

school system effective, and to his enterprise and breadth of view as well as

his technical knowledge in this respect the community is greatly indebted for

much that is valuable in its schools.  He has not, however, been wanting in

attention to other interests wherein the welfare of the people is involved.  He

is secretary of the Gunnison Stock-Growers’ Association, which has been largely

augmented in usefulness and power through his intelligent efforts, and has been

connected with other enterprises of value in the industrial and commercial

circles in which he moves.  In politics he is a Populist and Socialist, being in

favor of the better principles espoused by the parties so named, and having

broad views on public questions generally, and is a man of influence in all

matters of public interest.  On September 15, 1881, he was married at Salina,

Kansas, to Miss Cynthia Husband, a great-granddaughter of Col. Herman Husband,

of the First Colonial Regulators of North Carolina.  The great-grandfather of

the subject, Conrad Easterly, was with Washington at Valley Forge and in the

campaigns before and after that winter of terrible suffering.  

Additional Comments:
From Progressive Men of Western Colorado.  Chicago:  A.W. Bowen & Co., 1905

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/gunnison/bios/easterly72gbs.txt

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