Frank Abner SLOSSON

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1880, living with parents in Kensett Twp., Worth Co., Iowa
• Occupation: 1880; Works on the Farm
• Census: 1900, Living in Colorado Springs, El Paso County, Colorado
• Occupation: 1900; Coal Miner
• Census: 1910, Living in Monrovia, Los Angeles Co., California
• Occupation: 1910; Real Estate Agent

Notes:

"George Slawson: An American Pioneer" - by Harold D. Slosson
Frank was the adventurer, who, with his wife Nellie Dye, raised a family of six children. In spite of doing this, in his lifetime he was able to take part in many exciting things. Examples are holding down a Dakota timber claim, joining in the Oklahoma land rush, staking mining claims in Colorado's Cripple Creek gold camp, and developing sagebrush land near the Mojave Desert.....
After completion of elementary school, for a time Frank went to Osage Academy, located in Iowa's Mitchell County. Finally he attended Iowa State University at Ames, which had courses in agriculture, engineering, mechanical arts, etc. While there, he was a membe of the National Guard. Still preserved is a badge he received reading "Best Drilled Company, College Battalion, I.A.C., 1885".
Frank attended Iowa State University one year, it is known, and he may have gone there longer. Next, for three terms he taught school, with possibly a part of the time being in the Slosson country school....
Frank teamed up with another young Northwood man, an old family friend believed to be named Atwood. These two ytoung men took adjacent timber claims, located somewhere in the Dakotas, not then divided into North and South Dakota. It was rugged country, too, with some Sioux Indians, it is believed, still in the area.
Frank Slossn and young Atwood, living in cabins at adjacent corners of their respective "160s," did their cooking ("batching") together. It was an enjoyable period, but perhaps without the challenge of social contacts. After the prescribed year of work, Frank relinquished his claim and went back to Northwood.....
Frank accepted a position in the Railway Mail Service tht had benn offered to him. He would travel on the train and see that the mail went through. Earlier, all mail had been sorted at the respective post offices along the railroad line. Time-consuming for the postmasters, that method had slowed down mail collection and delivery as well. Then came the concept of having trained men traveling on a special mail car. They would continuously sort mail picked up in bags stationed by the tracks. The sorted mail would next go into other bags which were tossed off at new stations in succession. This railway mail service, it is recorded, worked well from the start.
Frank became a guardian and classifer of the U.S. Mail, with a chance to see that part of the country....
Frank was granted a leave of absence from the railway mail service to go to Oklahoma. To enter the land race..... Troops stood guard on the borders of this land to hold back the horde of prospective settlers. Then, on April 22, 1889, at the prescribed hour, bugles blew, and the big Oklahoma land rush was one.....According to the plan of this land opening, the entrant had the option of lots or of land. Frank chose lots, going right where the train took him - to what turned out to be the center of Oklahoma City....
Frank staked lots, camped on them, and held off all usurpers. He lived there for a while, probably "batching" in a tent. Around him in that immediate area almost instantaneously 15,000 people had come.....
It was probably a month or two before Frank had sold out and returned to Northwood. Frank's position was still open, and he continued with the railway mail service for some years thereafter.
Before going back to work for the railway mail service, he did have a moment of glory in this hometown of Northwood. After purchasing a new suit, it is recorded, he went around visiting old friends who immediately, in a grand welcome, dubbed him "Oklahoma." Frank was someone; he had participated in perhaps the greatest land rush of all time......
He had a romance with a pleasant young Northwood woman by the name of Nellie Dye. A popular member of Northwood's first high school graduating class. Nellie was also an artist, using crayons and oils for painting portraits and landscapes.....Interested in poetry, too, Hamlet had been her junior class essay assignment. Additionally she played the organ, having, one of the old pump types with tremolo and other stops for various effects....
Frank had an adventurour spirit and so, in 1894, after the depression of that year, he decided to leave the railway mail service... He decided to go to Colorado Springs, close to Cripple Creek.... Their new home, Colorado Springs, was over a mile high, the elevation being 5,980 feet....At first, according to Nellie in later years, they lived in La Verne, a place not now existent, on the Cripple Creek side of Colorado Springs. Here was born Harold Dye Slosson.... Eventually the family moved to their permanent home in Colorado Springs at 828 Spruce Street, near Mesa.
Frank, having friends in Colorado Springs, and some savings, went into the business of selling real estate and mining stocks. This latter helped the prospector to commercialize his mineral discovery. One of his business cards shows "McGill & Slosson, Real Estate, Mining Stocks, Loans & Insurance," with its location at 107 South Tejon Street. For a time, also, he was associated with C.S. Wilson, with the Colorado Springs Board of Trade & Mining Exchange, listing these partners in their directory as members in good standing.....
Partnership was common in those mining days.... He had a couple of mining claims with his father-in-law, Nelson T. Dye, in te rugged Tarrall area of Park County....In partnership with tow other Colorado Springs businessmen, mark L. Dorr and Alexander Merideth, Frank purchased some 160 acres just north of town....The partners soon surmised that down below the land surface was a layer of coal.....A Mr. Corley, who had come into the area with considerable means, leased the property from Frank and his associates on a royalty basis. A two-carpartment shaft was sunk some 477 feet deep, where they found the coal layers, as predicted...
In 1903, for the best interests of their family, Frank and Nellie decided to leave Colorado to make a new start in California.... It was just in tiem, too, for here is a quote about what happened in Cripple Creek: "In 1903 and 1904, one of the bloodiest strikes in the annals of labor started the decline of the (Cripple Creek) Gold Camp. Miners moved their families over night from the terror, and fear turned lose in the district"...
Finally the Slosson family came to the end of their travel at monrovia, California......On his arrival in Monrovia and for a while thereafter, Frank was associated with his brother, Charley, in the latter's real estate office on the main street in the center ot town..... Frank, however, had left the railway mail service in order to have his own independent business. Thus, after a time, he opened his own real estate office in Pasadena, nine miles west of Monrovia.....His first office was just north of the main street, close to a public park. Later he moved into a large, newly constructed office building on the main street, Colorado Avenue.
Frank soon became associated with business groups. He was a member of the Pasadena Board of Trade, which played an important part in the growth and development of the city. He was also a member, taking an active interest in the pasadena Realty Board. Meanwhile, in his residence town, always loyal to his political part, for a time he was president of the Monrovia-Duarte Democratic Club......
In 1918 came the great flu epidemic, one of the most disastrous of all time. And so it came about that on january 30, 1919, Frank Slosson - adventurer, developer, and father of six children - passed one, being laid to reast in Live Oak Cemetery in Monrovia.....
Nellie was a member of the WCTU, having seen woe and sorrow caused by liquor in the Colorado miners. Additionally, always of first interest was her church, which fortunately was within easy walking distance. For many years she had been a regular member, serving on various commitees as well. Now, on the east wall of that church she had fathfully served for a half century, is located a beautiful stained glass window, the "Moses" window, which was dedicated to the memory of Nellie Dye Slosson in a special ceremony.
Although Nellie, with her small frame, had appeared frail, nevertheless, she had a surprising amount of quick energy, with much endurance as well. She was also blessed with longevity, remaining active and mentally alert until just past her eighty-eighth birthday. Then she had a hip fracture, with complications from which she never recovered. And so, on August 20, 1953, she was called Home, with her buiral place being beside Frank in the Family plot in Live Oak Cemetery, Monrovia.

Frank married Nellie Miranda DYE on 10 Oct 1889 in Northwood, Worth County, Iowa. Nellie (daughter of Nelson Timberlake DYE and Martha Jane STONE) was born on 16 Aug 1865 in Wisconsin; died on 20 Aug 1953 in Monrovia, Los Angeles County, California; was buried in Live Oak Cemetery, Monrovia, Los Angeles Co., California. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Glaydice Lucille SLOSSON was born on 01 Jul 1899 in Colorado Springs, Colorado; died on 04 Dec 1971 in Los Angeles County,California.
2. Dorothy Mildred SLOSSON was born on 26 Aug 1904 in Monrovia, Los Angeles County, California; died on 02 Aug 1961 in Santa Paula, Ventura County, California.
3. Ruth Marean SLOSSON was born on 03 Jul 1892 in Albert Lea, Minnesota; died on 06 Sep 1967 in Long Beach, Los Angeles County, California.
4. Ralph Delano SLOSSON was born on 22 Oct 1901 in Colorado Springs, El Paso, Colorado, USA; died in Sep 1982 in Monrovia, Los Angeles County, California.
5. Jane May SLOSSON was born on 17 May 1894 in Albert Lea, Minnesota; died on 05 Jun 1988 in Los Angeles County, California.
6. Harold Dye SLOSSON was born on 06 Mar 1896 in La Verne, Colorado; died on 24 Jul 1986 in Los Angeles County, California.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1850, Living with parents in Maine, Broome Co., New York
• Census: 1880, living in Kensett Twp., Worth Co., Iowa
• Occupation: 1880; Farmer

Notes:

"George Slawson: An American Pioneer", by Harold D Slosson: John was the New York school teacher who in 1859 took his bride Roxy Jane, across the country - partway in a covered wagon - to Northwood, Iowa. There, while raising their family, the Slossons struggled to subdue a large farm on the prairie....
At this particular time, 1856, there was offered by the United States government to its citizens an opportunity to preempt land in southeas Minnesota. Preemption was a federal enactment (1841) to encourage development, whereby after a time settlers onpublic lands might purchase that porperty at a reasonable price.
It was just the opportunity that John, now age twenty-one and a citizen, had been waiting for. "He got the western fever,: explained one of his sons many years later. So, after making arrangements with the school and getting things in order, he started out on his great adventure - a trip to the west.
A prerequisite for traveling at that time was a stout purse well-filled with cash. Travel cards, credit cards, and branch banks were unheard of; nor could the traveler telegraph home for more funds. At each transfer point, John would have to put cash on the counter to get his ticket for the next leg of the journey.
Additionaly, John had to have physical strength to hold his own against bandits and gunmen in the frontier towns. Strength of character was likewise needed to avoid losing money to a trickster, bunko artist, or even some woman at that time preying on green lads from the country.
Also, when John reached his destination, he would need money to live on and to develop the new land for which, finally, he had to pay the government. Emergency funds were advisable, too. All of which made a western migration a major project for a young man like John, who had just reached his majority.
Once at Spring Valley, Minnesota, John worked on his new land. Details of his efforts have been los, but it is recorded that after completing his preemption requirements, John sold out to someone else - not an unusual circumstance at that time.
Meanwhile, John had heard of rich farmland to be had at a nominal price pleasantly located in north-central Iowa. It was in Worth County, where susequently the small town of Northwood was started. This was an opportunity that appealed to John, who had money in his pocket from the sale of the Spring Valley land.....
John Slosson arrived in Northwood in 1857, the year the town was plotted. Recognized as one of the first permanent settlers in Worth County, he purchased his farmland in section twenty-nine, now inside the present town of Northwood....
Meanwhile, John was carrying on with his farming. He was handicapped at times for supplies, since in all Worth county there was only one store. Started late in 1857, this store was operated by B.H. Beckett in a small fame building - the first business structure in that section. Supplies had to be hauled in by ox teams some 130 miles from McGregor on the Mississippi River....By the same token, farm products had to be shipped out by this same route at an understandably high charge, thus reducing the farmer's net income. Nevertheless, John seemed to have managed well, and to have a promising future. In 1859, therefore, when he was twenty-four years old, he made another important decision. it was to return to his home state of New York and there in De Ruyter to marry his sweetheart of schoolteaching days, Roxy Jane Finch....
When John reached De ruyter, he was greeted by the Finches, who were a large and important family in that new York area. So we can be certain that John and Roxy jane said their vows in a pleasant, old-fashioned church wedding...
...John Slosson had first lived on a small farm in section twenty-nine - John's early purchase - in what is now a part of the town of Northwood. This farm was subscquently sold, and in the spring of 1869 John acquired another farm three and a half miles southward from Northwood. It is in section sixteen, Kensett Township; but Northwood, which is in Worth County, still remained the center of the family's interests.
This new farm was nearly a section of land, or one square mile in size. More precisely, it was a little less than 600 acres. Flowing through th property, adding to its scenic attractiveness, was the Shell Rock River, which passes along the south side of the town of Northwood. The family home - anangular, Eastern-type, two-story frame building - was located on a knoll on the river bank, just out of reach of the seasonal floods...
John Slosson, Senior, was thirty-four years old when the family moved to the large farm. He is understood to have been reasonably tall and rather spare....He took an active interest in commnitym county, and state affairs. A summary of the father's life as written by his son, Frank.
Mr. Slosson (John arean, Sr.) helped to organize Kensett township and was chairman of the first board of trustees. He took an active interest in the organization of the same county. He, together with his eldest son, Charles E., established the first creamery in Worth County, it being one of the first in the state. In 1887 he was elected by a large majority to represent Worth County in the State Legislature, but owing to failing health he was not a candidate for reelection.
He was a successful farmer, taking a special interest in stock raising and horticultural matters. His death occured on March 29, 1900, one day previous to his 65th birthday.
The foregoing account is in accord with an obituary writted in the local newspaper at that time. Under the heading of "Hon. J.M. Slosson Dead," there is mentioned the community's high esteem "...for one of Worth County's earliest citizens as well as one of its best." It further states that "....with all of his old ambitions and his honors, he was a modet unobtrusive man...of spotless integrity, one who dealt justly with every one and wisted all men well." Continuing on, "he was a public spirited citizen who won the full confidence and liking of all who really knew him."
....It was provided in his will that his widow, Roxy Jane, should have a life lease on the property. But subject to this lease, about half of the land - some 300 acres, which included the farmhouse and barns - was willed to his then youngest son, John, Jr., who was at that time helping his father on the farm. Thus he might be expected to remain there. The other half of the property was willed in euql shares to the remaining children - Charles, Mary, and Frank.
Relieved of the farm's management, as would have been her task had the farm come to her outright shortly after the turn of the century, John's widow, Roxy Jane, moved to Monrovia, California. This was with her daughter Mary, and granddaughter, Jean. John did keep his half of the farm throughout his life. The land portions willed to Charles, Mary, and Frank were sold for their respective accounts.
Roxy Jane Slosson was living in retirement in Monrovia, California. there she had a small home - a California bungalow, which was occupied jointly with her daughter, Mary, and granddaughter, Jean. Roxy Jane kept busy with fruit trees around the place, as well as being active in local church work.
Grandmother Roxy Jane (Finch) Slosson in her youth was undoubtedly a good-looking woman of the fair type. Even in later years, her eyes were bright her features regular, and her skin perfectly clear and white. This smooth, clear skin seemed to be a Fionch family characteristic, evidenced in her sisters Hattie and Julia.
She was an early-day conservationist. Each sack or piece of paper that came into the house was saved on the shelf for future use. Pieces of string, no matter how small, were tied to the end of the string ball, which ever increased in size. Furthermore, grass clippings were placed under the home fruit trees where chickens grazed and lived on table scraps. Thus, the soil was enriched so that more fruit was produced, with the excess being canned in Mason jars to be used as the wintertime dessert.....
Of rather slight build, Roxy Jane Slosson nevertheless kept alert and active until her passing at the age of seventy-nine. Her buial place is in the Live Oak Cemetery at Monrovia. She can be remembered as a devout, faithful, hard-working pioneer woman, who raised her family under the rugged conditions existent on the early American plains.....

John married Jennie Roxy FINCH. Jennie was born on 19 May 1840 in Broome Co., New York; died in 1919 in Monrovia, Los Angeles County, California; was buried in Live Oak Cemetery, Monrovia, Los Angeles Co., California. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Name: Roxy Jane Finch
• Census: 1880, living with husband in Kensett Twp., Worth Co., Iowa
• Census: 1900, Living with son John H. in Kensett, Worth Co., Iowa
• Census: 1910, Living in Monrovia, Los Angeles Co., California