William E. Heard, clerk of the district court of the fourth judicial district of Idaho, and ex-officio auditor and recorder in and for Blaine County, Idaho, is a native of Missouri. He was born May 21, 1865, in a part of Benton county which has since been set off to form Hickory county, where John Heard, his grandfather, settled in 1832 and died in 1864. John Heard was a typical southern gentleman, born in the south in 1796. He lived in the south until about 1830, when he moved to Benton county, Missouri, becoming one of its first settlers. Earl Heard, son of John Heard and father of William E. Heard, was born in Hickory County, Missouri, May 8, 1837. He has been a successful farmer and is a decided Democrat and a member of the Missionary Baptist church. He married Mary Miller, also a native of Hickory county, Missouri, and a member of the same church, and they are both living, contented and respected, in their native county.
Reared on his father’s farm, William E. Heard attended the public schools near his birthplace in Missouri and later was a student at the Missionary Baptist Institute at Macedonia, Missouri. For five years after his graduation he divided his time between working on the farm and teaching school. He came to Hailey, Idaho, in 1890, and for four years afterward taught near that place. In 1894 he was elected probate judge of Logan county, Idaho, but not long afterward Logan county was legislated out of existence as a civil division of the state, and Mr. Heard found himself in the anomalous position of an officer without an office and again gave his attention to “teaching the young idea how to shoot.” In 1896 he was nominated on the Populist ticket for the office of assessor and ex-officio tax collector of Blaine County, and was elected by a majority of three hundred and seventy-six, and in 1898, again on the Populist ticket, he was elected clerk of the district court of the fourth judicial district of Idaho and ex-officio auditor and recorder of Blaine county, by a majority of one hundred and forty-three. His election to the last mentioned office was regarded as a pleasing demonstration of his personal popularity and the fealty of his friends.
August 1, 1886, Mr. Heard married Miss Addie M. Bartsche, and they have two sons, Harmon C, born July 2, 1889, and Herman C, born August 15, 1892. Mrs. Heard is the only child of George and Clarrissa Bartsche, and was born in Hickory County, Missouri, where her parents settled in 1841, though they now live at Hailey, members of their daughter’s household.
Mr. Heard is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and of the Modern Woodmen of America, and he and Mrs. Heard are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to all the interests of which they give most generous support. Mr. Heard is a public-spirited citizen who has at heart the progress and prosperity of the town of his adoption and who gives his helpful encouragement to every movement having for its object the enhancement of the welfare of its people or any considerable class of them.
