Wasco-Multnomah-Sherman County OR Archives Biographies.....Pepper, Carlton Lee November 18, 1876 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/or/orfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Ila L. Wakley iwakley@msn.com and July 14, 2006, 8:47 pm Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Volume II, Pages 154-155 CARLTON LEE PEPPER, practicing attorney-at-law in The Dalles, Oregon, was born on the 18th day of November, 1876, at Shenandoah, Iowa, where his father and mother, pioneers of the state of Iowa, were then living on a homestead. At the age of four years his family moved to Kansas, and in 1883 his father and mother again became pioneers, then moving to and settling in the Territory of Dakota. In 1890 the family moved to Plano, Illinois, where the father died, and where Carlton Lee Pepper attended the public schools. In 1905 he graduated from the law department of Lake Forest University, and was then admitted to the bar in Illinois His father was Thomas Derth Pepper, who was born at Brimfield, Massachusetts, March 25, 1844, and served under General Burnside in the Civil war. The father died at Plano, Illinois on May 16, 1910. His mother, whose maiden name was Ellen Minerva Hunt, was born at Bridgeport, Connecticut, January 7, 1840, and died at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 5, 1920. The father of Thomas Derth Pepper was an early settler of the state of Massachusetts, whose brother, David Pepper, was a merchant and the owner of a large amount of property in Philadelphia and who was the founder of Strathmore College. He was a millionaire and philanthropist, and the father of George Wharton Pepper, present United States senator. The father of Ellen Minerva Hunt was Reuben Hunt, one of the early settlers of Litchfield, Connecticut. Her mother was Emmeline Hunt, whose father, Amos Hunt, was a Yale graduate, as was also his father who was one of the first students to enter Yale College when it was founded in 1702 The progenitor of the Hunt family was an officer in William the Conqueror’s army. Following the battle of Hastings and the conquest of England in 1066, he received a large area of land in the north of England where he founded the Hunt family. In 1635, two brothers of the Hunt family, in company with twenty-three others, received a grant of land in New York, later a part of the state of Connecticut. One of the company, Sir William Hunt, settled in Canaan, Connecticut, and was the founder of the branch of the Hunt family of which the mother of Carlton Lee Pepper was a member. At a reunion of the Hunt family held in 1885, three thousand descendants personally registered at the meeting. More than ten thousand registered by mail. The meeting being the two hundred fiftieth anniversary of the advent of the Hunt family in America. The Hunt family has produced a number of prominent people, among them being Governor Hunt of Arizona; Rockwell Hunt, historian of the University of California; and Russell Hunt and William Hunt, both artists. At one time the Hunt brothers operated a foundry in New York, which was the only one in America fitted for making cannon for the Revolutionary army. Following his graduation from the Lake Forest University in 1905, in Chicago, Carlton Lee Pepper was admitted to the bar in the state of Illinois. In 1906 he moved to Portland, Oregon, where, for a period of nine months, he occupied the position of advertising manager for a large wholesale grocery house, going to The Dalles, Oregon, on July 1, 1907, where he entered into a partnership with S. W. Stark for the practice of law. Since the first day of July, 1907, he has continuously lived in and practiced law in The Dalles. Soon after coming to The Dalles, Carlton Lee Pepper was elected to the board of directors of the local Chamber of commerce where he served for several years, and in 1915 he was elected to the office of and served as president of the Chamber. He was city attorney of The Dalles during the eyars 1914 and 1915. In 1917 he organized what is known as The Dalles National Farm Loan Association, since which time he has acted as secretary-treasurer of the Association, and is now filling such office. For five years he has been president of the Central Oregon District Association of Farm Loan Associations, which office he is also filling at the present time. During the time Mr. Pepper has been living in The Dalles he has endeavored to perform his share of the civic duties falling on the ordinary individual living in a rural community, serving as needed on the various committees connected with the Chamber of Commerce and civic organizations. He has been active in fraternal affairs, being a member of the Masonic and Elk lodges of The Dalles, a Knight Templar, Royal Arch Mason and a life member of Al Kader Temple of the Shrine in Portland. He is Past Master of Wasco Lodge, No. 15, A. F. & A. M. in The Dalles. On September 22, 1902, Mr. Pepper was married to Grace Clarkson, and his family now consists of himself, his wife Grace Pepper, and one daughter Ruthe Eleanor, of the age of nineteen years, now attending the State Normal School at Monmouth. Mrs. Pepper is the daughter of James and Margaret Clarkson of Mendota, Illinois, where Mrs. Pepper was born, her father being born in Glasgow, Scotland, and her mother in Pennsylvania. Mr. Pepper has been a member of the Kiwanis Club of The Dalles since its organization in 1921, being a charter member of the Club and its first secretary, which office he held for a period of three years following the organization of the Club. In 1924 he acted as delegate of the Club to the international convention held at Denver. Mr. Pepper has one brother and two sisters. His sister, Mrs. A. W. Hunt, residing in Los Angeles, California, and the other sister, Mrs. James Motter, living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His brother, F. M. Pepper, is connected with the main office of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in New York, where he has charge of the vocational training department of such institution. While living in Illinois Mr. Pepper served six years as a member of the Illinois National Guard, being connected with the Signal Corps. In 1898 the Signal Corps of which he was a member was called for service in the Spanish-American war, but was recalled before reaching the front. By choice and because of his father’s views, Mr. Pepper is affiliated with the republican party. He is a member of the Congregational church at The Dalles. His chief recreational sports are golfing, fishing and hunting, which he enjoys at all times with a reasonable degree of success. Mr. Pepper’s valued possessions are his family, relatives and his friends. His physical possessions are his law business, his property in The Dalles, and a wheat ranch in Sherman county. Additional Comments: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Volume II, Cnicago, The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1928 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/or/wasco/bios/pepper75gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/orfiles/ File size: 7.4 Kb