- ALLEN G. WALLIHAN. During the last twenty-two years the subject
of this brief memoir has
- been a resident of Routt county, and during that period he
has borne his full share of labor and responsibility in the development
and advancement of the section. He is a progressive and far-seeing
ranchman, a photographer of live game of wide renown and a writer
of note. In each branch of his business and in all his sports
and pleasures his wife is an active assistant and an enthusiastic
partner with him, she being the only lady widely noted as a successful
photographer of wild game. Mr. WALLIHAN was born at Fortville
[Footville], Rock county, Wisconsin, on June 15, 1859, and is
the son of Pierce and Lucy L. (FLOWER) WALLIHAN, natives of the
state of Pennsylvania. The father was a tailor and farmer. In
1870 he brought his family to Colorado and located at Denver.
He engaged in ranching near the city, but owing to the ravages
of the grasshoppers was obliged to abandon this venture, and
then returned to his old Wisconsin home, where he died in 1898,
having survived his wife twenty-one years. The father was a Republican
politically, and both he and his wife belonged to the Methodist
church. Six of their eleven children are living. Orlando F.,
Dr. Samuel S., Sylvanus F., George P., Allen G. and Mary K. Allen
received his slender education in the common schools, supplementing
the lessons learned there in the subsequent school of experience
and by general reading. He remained at home working in the interest
of his parents until 1876. then began operations for himself,
working on farms in the vicinity of his home until 1879, when
he came to Colorado and took up his residence at Leadville. Here
he expended his time and money to prospecting and mining without
success. In the fall of 1880 he moved to Colorado Springs, and
after passing nearly a year there in a variety of occupations,
in ?88? changed his residence to Alpine, where he rigain engaged
in prospecting and mining, with alternate success and failure.
In July. 1882, he located on a ranch in Routt countv, which he
took up on a pre-emption claim and on which he lived until 1885,
engaged in raising horses for market. He then homesteaded on
the one he now occupies, and in addition, in the years 1885,
1886 and 1887, leased the Ora Haley ranch. His location is at
Lay, on Bear river, twenty-two miles west of Craig, and his ranch
comprises one hundred and sixty acres. Actively interested in
the success of the Republican party, to which he yields a loyal
support, and recognized as a man of force and usefulness in its
councils, he has been the postmaster at Lay continuously since
1885, and is said to be the oldest postmaster by continuous service
in the state. In addition to his ranch property Mr. WALLIHAN
owns an interest of magnitude in a tract of ten thousand acres
of bituminous coal land in which the deposit is two hundred feet
thick. When he settled in this region the whole of it was in
its primeval condition of wildness and game was very abundant.
This inspired him and his wife to cultivate their taste for photographing
and they acquired great skill in taking pictures of wild animals
in their various attitudes and movements. They have a fine collection
of such photographs which has so high a rank that at the Paris
exposition in 1900 it secured a diploma as the finest collection
ever exhibited, and was awarded a bronze medal at St. Louis in
1904 Mr. WALLIHAN also published a book entitled "Camera
Shots at Big Game," an introduction to which was written
by Mr. Roosevelt, now President of the United States. On April
11, 1885, Mr. Wallihan was married to Mrs. Mary A. FARNHAM. a
native of Milwaukee county, Wisconsin, and credited with being
the first white child born in that county. She is the daughter
of Elisha and Eliza HIGGINS, natives of Berkshire county, Massachusetts,
who moved to Milwaukee in 1835. The father, a Methodist minister,
was a carpenter in early life, and jas the credit of building
the first house in Milwaukee. He served there as a justice of
the peace for many years, and in other ways was serviceable in
the local public life of the community, actively supporting the
principles and candidates of the Whig party until its dissolution.
He and his wife were the parents of five children, of whom four
are living, Martha, wife of W. H. GILDERSLEEVE : Dr. C. W. HIGGINS,
Thomas R. HIGGINS, and Mrs. WALLIHAN. A son named Franklin died
in 1902. The father died in 1874 and the mother in 1883.
-
- [Taken from "Progressive Men of Western Colorado"
(c)1905 A. W. Bowen, Chicago; pp. 137-138]
|