John & James Wickersham
Contributed by Gay Wickersham Davis, Ph.D., Kitsap Peninsula

James Wickersham, a stone and brick mason at Waitsburg, is a native of Ohio, born November 16, 1832. He acquired a common-school education and learned his trade there, then went to Iowa, where he worked as a journeyman until the fall of 1865. He then went east to central Kansas, bought a farm of one hundred acres one and one-half miles east of Ottawa, the county seat of Franklin county, and turned his attention to agricultural pursuits and contracting. While there he was quite prominent locally, holding the positions of township trustee and assessor for a period of five years. After farming there steadily for more than a score of years he, in the spring of 1888, came to Waitsburg, where for half a decade he was engaged in the dual occupation of farming and merchandising. In 1892 Mr. Wickersham sold both his farm and his store, and purchased a half interest in the Waitsburg planing mill, but he afterwards sold this also and returned to the pursuit of his trade. He took a trip east in the fall of 1899, visiting the old home place and eating apples from the trees he had himself planted in 1849. Though quite well advanced in life, Mr. Wickersham is so well preserved that he is able to hold his own with the average man on a brick or stone wall.
Lyman, An Illustrated History of Walla Walla County, Pg 365

John Wickersham, a farmer resident about ten miles east of Walla Walla, is a native of Belmont County, Ohio, born in 1831. He lived in that state until twenty-five years old, engaged in farming, then went to Iowa, where his home was until, in 1862, he came to Walla Walla. In the spring he moved into the city of Walla Walla, and from that time until 1866 he was employed in teaming to the mines, but he then purchased what was known as the old Babcock place, and again became a farmer. Before long, however, he sold out and moved to Touchet, where he spent a year. Subsequently Mr. Wickersham came to the neighborhood in which he now lives, and acquired land by preemption and purchase until he had a farm of over a thousand acres. For a number of years afterwards he was one of the most extensive wheat raisers in the county, but latterly he has operated on a somewhat smaller scale. He is a man of energy and integrity, and his standing in the community is of the highest. He has been quite active in the Populist Party since its organization, and has served as a delegate to its state conventions. His fraternal connections are with the Pioneers of the Pacific, an insurance order, of which he is an honorary member. Lyman, An Illustrated History of Walla Walla County, Pg 440.

Submitted to the Walla Walla County WAGENWEB.