him iu the next. At the present time he is agent for the ConnectieiTt, North British and Mercantile, German-American, Scottish Union and National, Lion, of London, Hamburg and Magdenburg insurance companies. He is also marine agent, and represents the Fireman's Fund Insurance Company. The fact that so many responsible companies entrust their business in his hands is sufficient to show the standing in which he is held by business men abroad, and we take pleasure in testifying to his popularity at home. He is a pleTisant gentleman, always willing to take a risk, and issue a policy to his neighbor, and no one is ever dissatisfied in doing business with him.
HON. B. F. BONHAM. But few, if an>', stand higher socially, morally, or in the estimation of his neighbors and friends in this commonwealth than the subject of this sketch. His name is a synonym for all that is true and honorable in a man and fel- low citizen. Judge Bonham was born in East Tennessee October 8, 1828, ■ and removed with his parents to Indiana in 1840. In 1853 he crossed the plains to Oregon and settled near Parkersville, on French Prairie, in Ma- rion county, where he taught school for one year; removing from there in 1854 to Salem, where he has since resided, with the exception of two years spent at La Grande, in Union county. In January, 1856, he was elected Auditor of the Territory and Librarian, and held these positions until the admission of Oregon as a State in 1859. Jtidge Bonham was elected a member of the last Territorial and the first State Legislature of Oregon in 1858. The same year he was married to a daughter of Mr. John Baker, near Salem. In 1870 was elected from the Third Judicial District as one of the Justices of the Suijreme Court of Oregon and ex-officio Circuit Judge of said district for six years, and was Chief Justice of the State from 1874 until the close of his term. He was admitted to the practice of law by the Territorial Supreme Court in 1856, and has followed his profession closely since that date, and is to-day considered one of the ablest lawyers and jurists on the coast. Judge Bonham has been a life-long, straightforward and consistent Democrat, and on the closing day of the memorable Sena- torial contest in Oregon in 1882 received the vote of his party for the United States Senate.
HON. BEN SIMPSON. In the armed band of State-builders, who, catching the earhest rays of that regal star which the prophetic spirit of poesy discovered long ago as the leader of advancing civilization, followed its course to the western verge of the continent and laid the foundations of the ultimate piUar of Union, few are deserving of more honorable mention than Hon. Ben Simpson, at present holding the important office of United States Postal Inspecior for this district. He first saw the light in the grand old commonwealth of Tennessee in the year 1818. His parents immigrated to Missouri in 1820, and in that then bold border State he resided until 1846, the year of his departure for Oregon. In the interval, 1839, he was married to a young
