John Briscoe
Last night we had dinner with Deb and Mike Lemeshko and caught up with Mike’s latest research findings on John Briscoe. Judge Briscoe was the “Cantankerous Farmer” who was stirring up trouble here on the Peninsula in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. But, as Mike has come to find out, Briscoe wasn’t the only irritable and litigious resident among the pioneers of Pacific County.
Many of the names we know and admire are among those who apparently sued one another at the drop of a hat – Loomis, Seaborg, King, Stout, and even my sainted great-grandfather Robert Hamilton Espy! What started out as a simple search for Briscoe’s land holdings here on the Peninsula has turned up dozens of side issues and fascinating stories and has evolved into plans for a book that Mike hopes to have fleshed out by Christmastime!
Anne Elizabeth Gearhart Stout
I’m especially interested in the stories he’s uncovered about Stout. Not, Jonathan A. Stout who founded Seaview in 1880. The Stout of interest in Mike’s research is Jonathan’s ex-wife Annie Stout – apparently a force to be reckoned with. She was all about property rights and building fences and keeping people off her land. Those she couldn’t fend off with her trusty shotgun, she took to court. In 1895 she won a judgement against John Adamblade for damage to her fences and crops.
Annie made herself quite unpopular among the movers and shakers on the beach. At one point Judge Briscoe accused her of running a bawdy house and called her a prostitute. She sued him for defamation of character but lost on a technicality. It is clear is that Annie was a woman to be reckoned with. I wonder if her granddaughter, the late Faye Beaver, knew about all her shenanigans.
Faye and I spent quite a bit of time together back in the 1980s. She was proud of her heritage, and justly so I always thought. It was her maternal grandparents, Philip and Margaret Logan Gearhart who established a town on the Clatsop Plain that still bears their name. Her paternal grandparents began Seaview and her father, Charles Beaver, built the Shelburne Hotel. Quite a wonderful legacy!
Faye Beaver, 2001
I don’t remember, though, if she ever mentioned her colorful grandmother, Annie. Knowing Faye and her independent spirit, I think she would have taken Annie’s side in some of the controversies that apparently raged back in the 1880s. And I certainly wish that Faye and Mike Lemeshko’s paths had crossed… But, when you come right down to it, isn’t that a big part of what history is all about? Missed opportunities? Damn!
My maternal grandmother is Betty Mae Stout Myers
Her father was John Wesley Stout and his father was Oliver Stout and his father was Jonathan Stout and his mother was Annie Gearhart Stout. Contact me please
Joanne Freeman 509-423-0479