J.C. MacCRIMMON. – The rugged character of the Scotchmen has impressed itself everywhere upon our country. In the gentleman named above we find a native of the famous Isle of Skye, where he was born in 1848. He lived upon his native health, or cliff, only until 1851, and as a child was educated at Glasgow. There he remained, going to school until he was a lad of thirteen, and at that tender age went to seek his fortune on the shores of California, coming via Rio de Janeiro. The tediousness of the trip to San Francisco was relieved by a visit to the Island of Juan Fernandez. After reaching his destination on the Pacific, and remaining three years at the Golden city, he moved on to Victoria, finding employment as messenger for Wells, Fargo & Co., between Esquimalt and the city.
As he attained his eighteenth year, he began the true romance of Western life by going to the mines. He struck out for Caribou, prospecting on Cunningham creek all one summer, but drifted down again, reaching as low a latitude as Portland during the following spring. There he remained for a time, engaging with H.C. Strong in the grocery business until 1869; but the attraction of mining again drove him north taking him to Cassiar, on the Arctic slope. In those high latitudes, where a man can work twenty hours by daylight, he spent his summers, returning for his winters to Victoria, like a bird of passage, until 1880, when he came to the Cascades and joined the railroad force under J.H. Hallett. After finishing his share of railroad building on the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company’s division of the Cascades, he took contracts on the Northern Pacific, being called in 1883 to the difficult and responsible work of superintending the grading of the Cascade division on that road.
In 1884, feeling the desire to have a fixed home and social interests, he stopped at Yakima, Washington Territory, entering the general merchandise business, and in 1885 was appointed postmaster. In that year he also joined in the general removal to North Yakima, and was married to Miss Tillie F. Klippel of Portland, a noble woman, of whose companionship Mr. MacCrimmon was deprived by her death in 1886. In the same year he engaged in the crockery, glassware and grocery business, having for his partner the efficient merchant, Matt Bartholet. In February, 1888, he sold his interest in that firm, and turned his attention to the real-estate and fruit business, in both of which he is eminently successful, having a farm of eighty acres three miles west of North Yakima, forty-five of which are in fruit. His present wife was Miss Martha Wadham of Wisconsin, a lady of education and elevated character.
Mr. MacCrimmon is one of the sterling men of Yakima; and his business covers a wide territory.