JOHN S. VINSON. – The proprietor of Nolin, Oregon, was born in Iowa in 1848. His father, James Vinson, was a native of Ohio, and was born in 1808. In 1852 our subject crossed the plains with his father, who located a Donation claim in Clackamas county, Oregon, and was first postmaster at the town of Needy, where he subsequently kept a store. After the wars of 1855-56 he bought largely of the volunteer scrip, which as yet has never been paid by the government. This brought the elder Vinson financial ruin, and caused him to remove to Umatilla county in the early days, where he has ever been a respected citizen, and is still hale and hearty.
Our subject, John S. Vinson, was raised as a farmer in the old “Webfoot” state, and received a common-school education. At the age of nineteen he began to do for himself, working for wages and teaching school in Umatilla county. He finally located a land claim at the town of Vinson in 1871. In 1873 he was appointed postmaster at Vinson, and opened a general store in 1875, and continued in that business till 1883. In 1885 he purchased the site of Nolin, and was appointed postmaster and commenced merchandising there, and still follows that occupation. In 1880 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the legislature on the Republican ticket.
Nolin, situated six miles east of Echo, on the Umatilla river, is a country village in a semi-developed though productive portion of Umatilla county and is the natural shipping point for about thirty thousand acres of good wheat land. As its proprietor and leading citizen, Mr. Vinson possesses the requisite qualities to make it a progressive point, and we may look for its steady growth.
