Cowlitz-Statewide County WA Archives Biographies.....Ross, Edward Wesley February 27, 1865 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/wa/wafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com June 26, 2010, 6:18 pm Source: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. III, Published 1928, Pages 418 - 421 Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company EDWARD WESLEY ROSS. For over thirty-seven years Edward W. Ross has been actively identified with Cowlitz county and, as lawyer, public official, banker, farmer and citizen, has been a valuable asset to his section of the state. Mr. Ross was born near Moorefield and Holland, Wellington county, Ontario, Canada, on the 27th of February, 1865, and is a son of J. S. and Elizabeth (Robb) Ross. His father was born in the south of Scotland and when eight years old accompanied his parents on their removal to Canada, the family settling at Peterboro, Ontario. The mother was born in Scotland, a daughter of Peter and Martha Robb, who came to Canada and settled in Wellington county, in a colony of Maryborough, Ontario, farmers. That section of the country had been practically untouched by man and everything was primitive in the extreme. There J. S. Ross and Elizabeth Robb were married, and they lived there until 1880, when they went to Hawarden, Iowa, where the father engaged in farming. Later he moved to Ireton, Iowa, where he opened a hotel and acquired other business interests. Edward W. Ross acquired his early education in the country schools which he attended during the winter months in the various places where the family lived, and also attended the high school at Norfolk, Nebraska. He then left home and for awhile worked at various occupations in Nebraska and the Dakotas. He was ambitious for a higher education and, going to Minneapolis, entered the law school of the University of Minnesota, through which he paid his way by selling newspapers. He was graduated, with the degree of Bachelor of Law, in 1891 and the same year came to Castle Rock, Washington, looking for a location. Preparations had been made here for a Fourth of July celebration and owing to an emergency Mr. Ross was requested to deliver the oration for the day. He was encouraged to locate there permanently, as there was no lawyer in the town at that time. He did so and from the beginning his practice kept him busy, growing rapidly with the development of the lumber interests, and he became the attorney for a number of the lumber companies and other interests. In 1892 Mr. Ross was elected on the republican ticket as prosecuting attorney of Cowlitz county, and was reelected in 1894. By that time he had appeared before both the federal and the state supreme courts and was becoming well known. In 1896 he was nominated for attorney-general by the republican party and during the ensuing campaign made seventy-two speeches in fifty-nine days. However, he was defeated, as the people's party carried Washington by thirteen thousand votes. He then resumed his practice at Castle Rock, which he continued until 1901, when he accepted an appointment as assistant attorney- general and moved to Olympia but retaining his Cowlitz county connections. He held that position four years and in 1904 the republican state convention nominated him for state commissioner of public lands. He was elected and served four years, when he was renominated by direct primary and was again elected, thus serving eight years in that position. During the last four years of that period Mr. Ross had started a pear and apple orchard near Yakima, and in 1913 he moved to Yakima to manage his farm of seventy-four acres, which he developed into a very productive and profitable property. In 1919 he sold that place and in 1921 bought two hundred acres of land at West Kelso and started a dairy farm, establishing a herd of Guernsey cattle. However, within a year he sold that land to the Long-Bell Lumber Company, and also aided that concern in securing options on twelve thousand acres of additional land. Mr. Ross then engaged in the real estate business, in which he has been very successful. He is the owner of the Ross building in Longview, which has a frontage of one hundred feet on Commerce street, and has valuable properties in the business section of Kelso. He is vice president and a director of the First National Bank of Longview; is president of the Longview Loan and Investment Company; was one of the organizers and the first president of the Cowlitz Savings and Loan Association, at Longview, of which he is still a director, is vice president and a director of the Longview Memorial Hospital and vice president and director of the Longview Country Club. On August 28, 1890, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Mr. Ross was united in marriage to Miss Willetta A. McCollum, who was born at Shakopee, Minnesota, lived for awhile at Howard Lake, that state, and later moved to Minneapolis, where she met Mr. Ross. She is a daughter of William L. and Hannah C. (Freer) McCollum, both of families that were established in this country long prior to the war of the Revolution. Mr. McCollum came from Indiana and settled in Minnesota, from which state he enlisted in the Union army and served four years in the Civil war. After the war he became a druggist in Minnesota and for a number of years ran a drug store in Minneapolis. He came to Castle Rock, Washington, about 1895, and eventually moved to Portland, where he and his wife died. Mr. and Mrs. Ross have two children: Irene Willetta, born in Castle Rock in 1895, became the wife of George W. Sainsbury, of Longview, and they have a son, George Ross, born May 9, 1925, and Kenneth W. was born at Castle Rock in 1899. Mr. Ross has always supported the republican party and during the years of his residence in this county has evinced a constant interest in everything pertaining to the public welfare. He and his wife are members of the Community church at Longview, to which they give generous support. He is a Mason and served as the Master of Castle Rock Lodge, No. 62, for seven consecutive years, from 1905 to 1912. 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