William Alexander Thompson BUSHONG

  General Notes:

Source Citation: Year: 1880; Census Place: Brown, Delaware, Ohio; Roll: T9_1012; Family History Film: 1255012; Page: 374.1000; Enumeration District: 108; Image: 0249.
has age as 12 Born in Missouri in 1868 Portland, Oregon -

Its History and Builders W. A. T. BUSHONG. W. A. T. Bushong, a Portland capitalist, whose business career has been marked by a steady progress that in time made him the head of one of the largest publishing houses on the Pacific coast and enabled him to retire on the 1st of January, 1910, was born at East Union, Ohio, October 25, 1862. His parents were J. W. and Mary Elizabeth (Williams) Bushong. His great-grandparents on both sides of the house were soldiers in the Revolutionary war, and in the Bushong line he is descended from French Huguenots who came to America in the seventeenth century. His father, a native of Virginia, was a graduate of the Ohio Wesleyan University and at one time president of a college in Indiana. In the later years of his life he entered the ministry of the Methodist church, devoting his energies to the spread of the gospel until his death, about 1896. He traveled extensively all over the globe, was a profound student of the dead languages and fluently spoke seven different tongues. He filled some of the most prominent pulpits in the south and middle west, being called to pastorates and churches in Little Rock, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Seattle and Portland. In 1890 he built the Centenary Methodist church, the finest on the east side of the river in Portland, to which city he had come in 1888. His wife was a native of Ohio, where her parents were among the earliest settlers, there owning a large estate. After the death of Rev. Bushong his widow married Robert Booth, and is now a resident of Salem, Oregon. Mr. Booth has reared a family of distinguished sons, including Robert Booth, of the Booth Kelly Lumber Company, and Henry Booth, a banker of Roseburg, Oregon. W. A. T. Bushong is the eldest of three sons, his brothers being: H. F. Bushong, who is living retired in one of Portland's suburbs ; and J. W. Bushong, a hotel man of this city. In the acquirement of his education W. A. T. Bushong attended successively the Woodward High School of Cincinnati, Drury College, at Springfield, Missouri, and the Cincinnati Commercial College, from which he was graduated with the class of 1882. He then entered the wholesale grocery business as a clerk and later removed to Springfield, Ohio, where he was connected with a manufacturing concern. In 1884 he engaged in the nursery business there, continuing therein until 1890, when he came to Portland and with his father purchased stock in the Standard Box factory which, however, failed in 1891. During the financial panic that was then prevalent he accepted a very humble position with the Lewis & Dryden Printing Company, but his manifest ability soon won him advancement and he served successively as bookkeeper, cashier, assistant manager and manager. In the meantime changes in partnership led to the adoption of the firm style of the C. H. Crocker Company, this becoming a branch of the San Francisco house. He remained as manager for more than a year and then purchased a half interest in the business, changing the name to Bushong & Company, in which connection he built up one of the largest publishing houses on the Pacific coast, the extent and importance of the trade bringing such substantial financial returns that on the 1st of January, 1910, Mr. Bushong was able to retire with a handsome competency, being now numbered among the capitalists of the city. On the 16th of June, 1884, in Springfield, Ohio, Mr. Bushong was married to Miss Kate Carrington, they being twenty-one and seventeen years of age respectively. Mrs. Bushong is a daughter of Charles Carrington, of Springfield. She has been quite prominently identified with musical circles in Portland. An accomplished vocalist, she has sung in several of the leading churches of the city. Mr. and Mrs. Bushong reside at No. 821 Hawthorne avenue, where he erected a beautiful residence about six years ago. Following his retirement they spent eight months abroad, traveling in Turkey, Palestine, Asia Minor, Egypt and all of the European countries except Russia and the Scandinavian peninsula, returning on the 1st of September. Mr. Bushong now gives his attention entirely to his large holdings in downtown real estate. He belongs to the Commercial Club and to the Masonic fraternity, and votes with the republican party. He has always been an enthusiastic sportsman and has hunted and fished throughout this country, gathering a fine collection of Indian relics while on his trips. He is also a lover of motoring and now has leisure to indulge his interest in the various outdoor sports. His rise has been rapid. Left without anything in 1891, and starting anew in the world in the most humble capacity, he has within eighteen years not only retrieved his lost possessions but gained a place among the most successful business men of Portland, and in balancing accounts between his acts and his motives it is found that truth and honor, as well as enterprise and ambition, have guided him in all of his business relations.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Personal Photo: WAT and Kate, 1930, Havana, Cuba.

William married Kate CARRINGTON, daughter of Charles CARRINGTON and Catherine M., on 16 Jun 1884 in Clark Co., Ohio. (Kate CARRINGTON was born on 9 Jan 1866 in Dunbar, Pennsylvania and died on 30 Dec 1945 in Portland, Oregon.)