Hutchinson, James

The following data is extracted from Illustrated History of the State of Idaho.

Many theories have been advanced as to the best method of winning success, but the only safe, sure way to gain it is by close application, perseverance and careful consideration of the business problems that are continually arising. Investigation will show that the majority of men who have started out in life with little or no capital and have won a competency if not wealth, have to attribute their prosperity to just such causes, and it is those elements which have made Mr. Hutchinson one of the leading business men of his state. He is now superintendent of the Trade Dollar Consolidated Mining Company, at Silver City, and is numbered among the representative residents of that place.

A native of Yorkshire, England, he was born November 17, 1837, his parents being Joseph and Eleanor (Spencley) Hutchinson, both of whom were natives of the same county, where their ancestors had lived for many generations. The father was a miner and shepherd, and with his wife and eight children he crossed the Atlantic and took up his residence in Iowa. The voyage was made in 1848, on a sailing vessel, which dropped anchor in the harbor of New York nine weeks after leaving the European port. Locating in Dubuque, Iowa, the mother there died in 185 1, at the age of forty-one years, being stricken with cholera. The father began working in a smelter and eventually became possessed of a large farm in Iowa. Later he removed to Wisconsin, where his death occurred in his eighty-second year. Seven of his children are yet living, four of the number being residents of Wisconsin, while one is in Klondyke, another in California, and James in Silver City, Idaho.

The last named was reared on his father's farm and assisted in the labors of the fields. He also worked in the mines and in his father's smelter, and was thus in a measure prepared for his present important position. He was married January 25, 1863, to Miss Susan O'Neil, of Wisconsin, and the following day started with his bride for Colorado. The Indians were on the warpath, but Mr. and Mrs. Hutchinson crossed the plains in safety, traveling by stage most of the way. They arrived at Central City, on the I2th of June 1863, and Mr. Hutchinson took charge of the celebrated Gregory lode, the first mine discovered west of the Missouri river and east of the Rocky mountains. He was its superintendent for twenty years, throughout which time it proved a paying investment. He was also superintendent of the famous Robinson and Aspen mines, and was appointed state inspector of mines for Colorado, by Governor Cooper, in 1889.

Later Mr. Hutchinson accepted the superintendency of the mines of the Manhattan Company, in Montana, and sold the property for them. He arrived at Silver City on the 6th of December 1893 and took charge of the works of the Trade Dollar Mining & Milling Company on the 17th of January 1894, since which time the business has paid regular dividends and the mines have become one of the most valuable properties of the kind in the northwest. In 1897, with a ten-stamp mill, the net profits were four hundred thousand dollars.

In 1889 Mr. Hutchinson was called upon to mourn the death of his wife, who had been most faithful and devoted to him and her family and who was a member of the Catholic Church. They had a family of six children: Joseph H., Mary E., Margaret A., Nellie A., Charles J. and Eleanor A. The older daughters are keeping house in Denver, where they occupy a nice residence, and the younger children are attending school there. Socially Mr. Hutchinson is a Knight Templar Mason. He was raised to the degree of Master Mason in St. Louis City Lodge, No. 6, A. F. & A. M, in 1865 and is also a member of the temple of the Mystic Shrine in Boise. He is a gentleman of lifelong mining experience, of the highest probity of character and has always enjoyed the esteem of those who have known him, wherever he has resided.

Source: Illustrated History of the State of Idaho

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