It takes more than a good resume to get a government contract.
Addison Alexander Lindsley (1848-
)
From: “South-Western Washington.”
A
A. Lindsley, State Treasurer, was born in Port Waukesha, Wisconsin, in 1848. His
father was a Presbyterian minister, and with his family removed to West Chester
County, New York, while the subject of this sketch was an infant. Young Lindsley
attended school there until he was nineteen years of age, when with his parents he came,
out to Portland, Oregon, where he attended school at Forest Grove Pacific University,
graduating in 1870 with the degree of bachelor of
arts. He then started out in life in civil engineering
and surveying for the Northern Pacific railroad,
and for the United States government, being thus
engaged for four years. In 1874 he went to San
Francisco, where in 1880 and 1881 he held the office
of city and county surveyor. For three years prior
to that time he had been engaged in the coal
business and various other pursuits. In 1882 he
came to Clark county, purchased a farm, and has
devoted his attention to agriculture ever since,
having, in connection with his brother, large farming
interests at Union Ridge, Clark county, which has
Figure 1 Addison Alexander Lindsley
heretofore been his place of residence. In 1885-6
Mr. Lindsley was a member of the territorial
legislature, and was a delegate to the constitutional convention of 1889. In October of
the same year, he was elected to the office of state treasurer, a position which he is in every
way eminently qualified to occupy. Mr. Lindsley is a single man, which will be excused
by a majority of the readers of this volume when they are told that he is a staunch
Republican, representing the most progressive element in his party.
From: “City of Portland”
Upon the pages of the history of the northwest, in its political progress, in its
material development and its commercial activity, the name of Addison Alexander
Lindsley is written large. He became a resident of in 1868 and although through
the intervening years he has resided n other districts, the city now claims him as one
Copyright 2008 Jerry Olson
February 7, 2016
of its enterprising men, closely connected with the subsidiary interests of the lumber
industry in the northwest. He was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin, December 16,
1848, a son of Aaron Ladner and Julia (West) Lindsley, the former a minister of the
Presbyterian church, while Mrs. Lindsley was of old Knickerbocker stock. His first
paternal ancestor in America was a Cromwellian, who fled from England at the time
of the restoration. One of his paternal ancestors was wounded at the battle of
Monmouth in the Revolutionary war.
A. A. Lindsley pursued his education in the private schools of the state of New York and at
the Pacific University, from which he was graduated in 1870 on the completion of the
classical course whereby he won the Bachelor of Arts degree. Although a native of the
middle west, he became a resident of South Salem, New York, in 1851, and after living on the
Atlantic coast for seventeen years, came to Portland, Oregon, in 1868. Here he resumed his
interrupted simile, and as previously stated was graduated at Forest Grove. For three years
thereafter he was engaged in engineering for the Northern Pacific Railroad and in surveying
the Puyallup and Tulalip Indian reservations for the United States government. From 1873
until 1879 he was engaged in business in San Francisco, California, and in the latter year
entered upon the duties of city and county surveyor at San Francisco, holding that position
until 1881, and also serving as a member of the board of election commissioners. In the latter
year he made his way northward to Clarke County, Washington, where he engaged in
farming and dairying until 1889. He helped to organize and was elected first president of the
Washing-ton Dairymen's Association. While agricultural affairs claimed the greater part of
his time and attention he also became actively interested in politics and was accorded a
position of local leadership in the ranks of the republican party. His service as a member of
the territorial legislature in 1885 and 1886 brought him prominently into public notice and in
1889 he was chosen to represent his district in the constitutional convention which framed
the organic law of the state. The same year he was elected state treasurer of Washington and
was at the head of the financial department of the state until 1893. Following the selection of
his successor he served as deputy in the state treasurer's office until 1897, and the following
year came to Portland, where he has since engaged in the real-estate business, managing
southern and eastern Oregon property in active connections with real-estate and irrigation
enterprises. He also has mining interests in Alaska, and in that connection made trips to
Klondike in 1898, 1899 and 1900 as superintendent of the Yukon Gold Company. In 1906 he
became one of the organizers of The Lindsley Wright Company of which he is now the
president. This company was formed to handle cedar poles, posts and piling and is
conducting an extensive business, its trade constantly increasing.
On the 30th of April, 1901, Mr. Lindsley was married in Olympia, Washington, to Miss
Marion Patton, a daughter of John M. Patton, a Civil war veteran and postoffice inspector
who invented the system of railway mail distribution now in general use. Mr. Lindsley is the
treasurer of the Oregon Society of the Sons of the American Revolution and also belongs to
the Presbyterian church. His understanding of the conditions of the times, his realization of
Copyright 2008 Jerry Olson
February 7, 2016
the value of opportunity and his carefully formulated plans have enabled him to work his way
upward in business lines and at the same time become a potent factor in political circles and
in the discussion of significant and vital themes.
Copyright 2008 Jerry Olson
February 7, 2016