Payette County ID Archives Biographies.....Scritchfield, Jesse O. 1873 - 0000
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Cheryl Hanson ihansonb@fmtc.com January 19, 2006, 1:07 am

Author: Hiram T. French

History of Idaho
By Hiram T. French, M.S.
The Lewis Publishing Co
Chicago & New York 1914

JESSE O. SCRITCHFIELD

One of the prosperous banking institutions of Canyon county, Idaho, is that of 
the Fruitland State Bank at Fruitland, of which Jesse O. Scritchfield was one 
of the organizers and since its incorporation has been cashier and one of its 
leading spirits.  Though his identification with Idaho and with this community 
dates back but to 1909, he has in the very short intervening period since then 
become recognized as a careful financier, conservative yet progressive and as 
a citizen of worth and high principles.

He is a Hoosier by birth, born in Creston, Lake county, Indiana, August 29, 
1873.  William T. Scritchfield, his father, a native of Kentucky, moved into 
Indiana during the ‘60s and for about fifteen years was a successful farmer 
and merchant in that state.  In 1876 he changed his residence to Kansas and 
passed away at Westmoreland, Kansas, at the age of sixty-four.  As a private 
in the Seventeenth Ohio Infantry, William T. Scritchfield gave three years of 
loyal service to the Union cause during the Civil war, participating with 
Sherman on the latter’s memorable march to the sea, as well as in other 
campaigns of lesser note.  He was married in Indiana to Laura J. Thompson, a 
native of that state, and to their union were born four sons.  The mother died 
in 1886.

Jesse O. Scritchfield, the youngest of these sons, grew up in Kansas and by 
his own diligence and perseverance secured a good education.  His earlier 
training was acquired in the public schools of Kansas and Nebraska and later 
he became a student at the Fairfield Normal Collegiate Institute at Fairfield, 
Nebraska, supplementing this course by a period of business training in the 
Lincoln Business College, Lincoln, Nebraska.  He took up independent activity 
at the age of twenty-two, when he settled on a government claim in Garfield 
county, Oklahoma, near Enid, and for eight years he followed farming there 
very successfully.  Disposing of this claim, he changed his residence to 
Oklahoma City and became a commercial traveler for the Moline Plow Company, 
continuing in this line of activity seven years.  In the fall of 1909 he came 
to Idaho and located at Payette, where he assisted in organizing the Fruitland 
State Bank, of which he became cashier.  That position he has since filled 
most acceptably, to all concerned, with credit and benefit to the institution 
and to the community to which it gives financial service.  Associated with him 
in the management of the bank are C. H. Sargent, president; E. E. Hunter, vice-
president; and H. R. Russell, assistant cashier.  Its board of directors 
include the same gentlemen with the exception of Mr. Russell and the addition 
of A. H. McConnell and C.W. Young.  The deposits, which in April, 1910, were 
not quite $17,000, are now approximately $100,000, and this alone gives an 
estimate of how the bank has grown in volume of business and in the confidence 
of the people of Fruitland and its vicinity.  Besides these financial 
interests Mr. Scritchfield is much interested in horticulture and is operating 
several fruit farms in Canyon county, Idaho, and in Malheur county, Oregon.  
He has always been a staunch Republican and prior to his removal to Idaho was 
quite active in political affairs.  He is a member of the Fruitland Commercial 
Club, and fraternally is a member of the Fruitland camp of the Modern Woodmen 
of America.  In church faith and membership he is a Methodist.

At Enid, Oklahoma, on September 27, 1897, Mr. Scritchfield was married to Miss 
Minnie Humphreys, who is a daughter of L. C. Humphreys and was born in 
Illinois.  They have one son, W. Earl Scritchfield, born at Enid, Oklahoma, 
October 17, 1898.  when asked for his opinion of Idaho Mr. Scritchfield 
replied, “I am more than satisfied with Idaho and have even no desire to 
travel east of the Rockies.”

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