Multnomah-Marion County OR Archives Biographies.....Crosman, Allen B. June 7, 1846 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com January 26, 2007, 9:48 pm

Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company

	ALLEN B. CROSMAN.  In the Oregon Daily Journal appeared the following 
record of the life of one of the pioneer settlers of the state, written by 
Fred Lockley:
	“Said A. B. Crosman, ex-postmaster of Portland, ‘I was born June 7, 
1846, on the Susquehanna river in Pennsylvania and my parents were the Rev. 
James and Levina (Brickley) Crosman.  My mother died in Ohio in 1856 and my 
father’s second wife was Augusta Tillman.
	“’I received a public school education and earned my first money as a 
clerk in a store at Waukesha, Wisconsin, receiving fifty dollars per year and 
my board.  Next I was a newsboy on the Milwaukee & Mississippi Railroad and 
two years later I became an express agent.  For some time I remained with the 
road and advanced to a point where I was able to relieve the regular passenger 
conductors when they wanted a day off.  I was making over two hundred dollars 
a month and managed to save some money.
	“’In 1864 I joined my father and stepmother in New York city, where we 
took passage on the steamship Ocean Queen, which sailed under convoy.  The 
Civil war was then in progress and the two hundred marines on our boat 
mutinied.  They attempted to take the ship but were overcome and two of the 
marines were killed, while six were wounded.  We spent a week in San Francisco 
and then took a boat which landed us in Portland, where we boarded the steamer 
Reliance, bound for Salem.  C. P. Church, now of Portland, was the purser of 
the Reliance.  Father had turned the care of our freight over to me.  They 
charged more for taking our goods from Portland to Salem than they had from 
San Francisco to Portland.  We had currency and they charged for our freight 
on a gold basis.  It took two dollars and twelve cents in currency to buy a 
dollar in gold, so that our currency didn’t go very far.
	“’I went to the dock to see about the unloading of our freight and 
there I met Mr. Usafavage, who, with John G. Wright, owned the dock.  At that 
time they also had a store and Mr. Wright is still living in Salem, being one 
of its oldest residents.  Mr. Usafavage said, “What are you planning to do?  
Have you got a job in sight?”  I told him I was looking for work but hadn’t 
located any yet.  He said, “I’ll give you thirty dollars a month and board.  
You can come to work tomorrow.”  I reported to him the next morning.  Father 
was a Methodist Evangelical minister and late in the ‘60s built at Salem the 
first church of that denomination in Oregon.  He was next called to Corvallis, 
Oregon, and afterward was pastor of a church in Oakland, California.  
Subsequently he moved to Berkeley, California, and there passed away in 1913, 
when ninety-one years of age.
	“’I clerked in stores until 1870 and had saved twelve hundred 
dollars.  With this capital I embarked in the clothing and men’s furnishing 
business in Salem, opening a store in the rear of the Bush Bank.  J. J. Murphy 
was a partner in the undertaking, in the firm of Murphy & Crosman, having the 
first men’s furnishing store there, and later I purchased his interest in the 
store.  In 1883, during the administration of President Arthur, I was 
appointed postmaster of Salem and served for two and a half years.  After 
tendering my resignation I resumed the management of my store and conducted 
the business until 1887.
	“’There was a lively crowd of young fellows in Salem fifty years ago 
and we used to have some strenuous times.  If anything mean was ever done in 
Salem they usually laid it to me and, to be frank about the matter, they 
usually were right.  I remember when George W. Boothby was building the 
courthouse in Salem.  The statute of Liberty had just been put up and John 
Minto, at that time a crony of mine who has served as postmaster of Portland 
and in other official positions since, and myself decided that the statute 
would look better if it had a dress on.  We borrowed the fire ladders from the 
truck house, secured a bolt of calico and made not only a Mother Hubbard of 
the cloth for the figure of Justice, but we also fixed her up with a calico 
sunbonnet, broom in the hands.
	“’What I couldn’t think of in those days John Minto could, and between 
us we thought of a good deal.  I remember when I was in the clothing business 
A. N. Gilbert was a dealer in boots and shoes.  John Q. Wilson was the owner 
of a dray and truck business and had charge of the city sprinkling wagon.  
Andy and I went to Mr. Wilson and told him that we would have the city 
sprinkling wagon painted a bright red if he would allow us to put our signs on 
it.  He consented, so Andy Gilbert put an advertisement for his shoe store on 
one side of the wagon and I put an advertisement for my clothing business on 
the other side.  One of the business men of Salem happened to call at the 
paint shop. He saw the city sprinkling wagon with our signs on it.  In those 
days each business firm paid to have the street sprinkled in front of its 
store.  This business man went to Wilson and notified him not to sprinkle in 
front of his place until the signs were removed from the wagon.  He also told 
him not to haul any more of his freight.  He passed the word about among the 
other business men, many of whom went to Wilson and said that they wouldn’t 
pay for sprinkling while Gilbert and Crosman had their signs on the wagon.  
Mr. Wilson came to me and said, “It means a loss of hundreds of dollars a 
month if I let you keep your signs on the sprinkling wagon.  I had no idea 
that the business men would look at it in the way they do and I want to be 
released from my promise.”  I told him just to let the matter stay as it was 
for a day or two and we would arrange it in some way.  That night I got a 
crowd of young fellows, and securing what ladders and ropes we needed from the 
engine house, we took the sprinkling wagon to pieces.  At two o’clock in the 
morning we hoisted it upon Stratton’s law office.  We put the wagon all 
together, ready for service, and left it standing on top of the roof, plainly 
visible from the street.  We painted a big sign, which we hung on the front of 
the wagon.  The sign read, “How is this for high?”  The father of John B. 
Coffey, now serving as county clerk, was night watch.  We had one of the boys 
watch for him and whenever he came by we would be out of sight and still as 
mice.  Andy Gilbert and I got ten times more advertising out of the stunt than 
if the wagon had run on the streets for a year.  Everyone in Salem turned out 
to see the sprinkling wagon on Judge Stratton’s roof.  The papers took it up 
and all sorts of speculation was indulged in as to how it could have gotten 
there.
	“’In the early days there were no professional baseball teams in Salem 
but the rivalry among the amateur teams was intense.  For a while I played 
with the college team.  I also played with the Aldine team and later with the 
capital baseball team.  W. D. Fenton held down second base and George H. 
Burnett also played one of the bases.  I usually held down first base or was 
in the pitcher’s box.  I practiced until I could pitch a twisted ball that 
popped up just before getting across the plate and this used to bother the 
other teams a whole lot.  Judge Bean and George W. McBride played with one of 
the west side teams, the Monmouth team, I think, George W. Belt, later a judge 
at Spokane, Steve Chadwick and many men who have since become prominent were 
in the ball teams and the hose companies at that time.  W. D. Fenton was a 
good ball player.  The Fenton family was composed mostly of boys and with 
their father they had a full baseball nine.  The Fenton nine was some team, 
too.  They played baseball and played it well.
	“’For twenty-three years I belonged to the fire department of Salem.  
Shortly after I arrived in the city I joined the Capitals.  There was intense 
rivalry between the Capital and Tiger companies as to whose engine should have 
the fox tail.  “Frosty” Price was our driver.   I was secretary, chief 
engineer and filled every office in the engine company.  When I was its 
president I bought the La France steamer for the Capitals, of which I was 
chief engineer when I left Salem.  On August 2, 1873, I received a telegram 
from Henry Failing, the mayor of Portland, asking for help of the Salem fire 
department and stating that Portland was burning up and that they had lost 
control of the fire.  A special train was made up at the Salem depot.  I had 
the fire alarm sounded.  The men, who thought it was an ordinary fire, dropped 
whatever they were doing and took their places.  Many of them were in the 
shirt sleeves and without hats.  We made the run to the depot, put our 
apparatus aboard the flat car, and one hour and sixteen minutes later had 
water on the fire in Portland.  The blaze had broken out in the early morning 
in Hurgern & Shindler’s furniture store on First street, near Taylor.  The 
Metropolin Hotel, the Patton House and the Multnomah Hotel, as well as a 
saloon and a foundry in that block were soon in flames.  A breeze sprang up 
and the flames spread to Main and Second streets.  The fire had attacked the 
Kellogg House, and the St. Charles Hotel, one of the finest in the west at 
that time, was in the direct line of the flames.  Capital No. 1 was playing 
into Willamette No. 1 from the river at the wharf.  Some of our boys climbed 
to the roof of the St. Charles Hotel, from which a rope was lowered.  W. H. 
Bracket leaned far over the roof and got the nozzle of the hose.  Columbia No. 
3 was at the southern extremity of the wharf, near the foot of Morrison 
street, and was pumping water on the St. Charles.  We finally stopped the fire 
at the St. Charles Hotel.  The Salem boys were given credit, and they deserved 
it, for stopping the fire here and saving the St. Charles.  The fire destroyed 
twenty-two city blocks in spite of the efforts of the Portland firemen and 
those from Salem, Vancouver and Oregon City.  All old Portlanders will 
remember the all day fight on August 2, forty years ago, when it looked as if 
the whole city was doomed.’”
	In 1887 Mr. Crosman disposed of his stock of merchandise in Salem and 
transferred his activities to Portland, opening a clothing store on First 
street.  For ten years he continued as a dealer in men’s furnishings and in 
1897 closed the establishment.  He was police commissioner under Mayor Frank 
and in 1898 was appointed postmaster of Portland, serving until March, 1903.  
In each of these offices he made an excellent record, discharging his duties 
with conscientiousness and efficiency.  On retiring from public affairs Mr. 
Crosman was assigned the task of selling a timber tract of one hundred 
thousand acres on Coos bay, successfully executing the commission, and for 
eight years was secretary and treasurer of the British Columbia Coal Company.  
For a considerable period he has specialized in investments, dealing only in 
high-grade securities, and a well merited reputation for conservatism and 
reliability has enabled him to establish a business of substantial proportions.
	Mr. Crosman was married November 8, 1877, in Salem to Miss Linnie 
McCully, a daughter of Asa A. and Hannah K. (Waters) McCully and a member of 
one of the pioneer families of Oregon.  Mr. McCully was a native of St. Johns, 
province of New Brunswick, Canada, and in childhood came to the United States 
with his parents Mr. and Mrs. John McCully, who settled in Henry county, Iowa, 
afterward going to Mount Pleasant, Iowa.  In 1849 Asa A. McCully went to the 
gold fields of California, returning to Iowa about a year later, and in 1852 
made a second trip to the Pacific coast, crossing the plains in a covered 
wagon drawn by oxen.  He took up a donation land claim in Linn county, Oregon, 
and was one of the founders of Thurston, now called Harrisburg.  There he 
engaged in merchandising and was the first postmaster of the town.  In 1863 he 
removed to Salem, where he also conducted a store, and for a number of years 
was president of the Peoples Transportation Company.  Mr. McCully engaged in 
business in Salem during the remainder of his life but died on his farm in 
Yamhill county, as the result of being kicked by a horse, on August 12, 1886.  
At that time he was a member of the city council and had previously served in 
the Oregon legislature.  His daughter, Mrs. Crosman, passed away in July, 
1925, in Portland.  She had become the mother of three children:  Alice 
Louise, who became the wife of W. H. Harder in 1899 and is now Mrs. George W. 
Justin, of Portland; Lillian, an opera singer of national repute, making her 
home in New York city, is the wife of Charles St. Clair, well known in musical 
and theatrical circles; and Allen B. Crosman, Jr., who died in November, 1909, 
when a young man of nineteen.
	Mr. Crosman gives his political support to the republican party and is 
a member of the Arlington Club, with which he has been affiliated for thirty-
six years.  Throughout life he has been a tireless worker and at the ripe age 
of eighty-two years is vigorous and alert, still continuing at the head of his 
business.  For more than six decades he has lived in Oregon, experiencing many 
phases of pioneer existence in the Pacific northwest and witnessing a notable 
transformation in the appearance of the country.  He has played well his part, 
contributing his full share toward the work of development and progress, and 
time has strengthened his hold upon the esteem of his fellowmen, for his life 
has been upright and useful.


Additional Comments:
History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Pages 174-177

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