Ralph Dyar’s 1952 book News For An Empire: The Story Of The Spokesman Review has been scanned and is online at the Internet Archive. Horace T. Brown was involved with the founding of the paper. Also see The Spokesman-Review (HistoryLink Essay 10153).
The farm of Ed King in Riverdale, Nebraska. (Photo by Solomon D. Butcher). Edgar Lincoln King‘s mother was Alva Fitch’s second wife.
Other photos from the collection:
The home of my great great grandfather Alva Levi Fitch in 1903 (Photo by Solomon D. Butcher).
Alva and his second wife (my step gg grandmother) Alice are on the left. The two in the middle are probably their children and the two on the right, children from Alva’s first marriage (research ongoing).
Alva Levi Fitch was born in Warren, Ohio in 1838. On September 10, 1861, he enlisted in the 14th Independent Battery Ohio Light Artillery (his brother George Fitch joined the 31st Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment). The 14th Battery was at Shiloh and the Siege of Corinth in 1862 then moved to Lynnville, Tennessee in 1863. In January of 1864, Alva reinlisted as a volunteer before the Atlanta Campaign and the Franklin-Nashville Campaign. The Battery was transferred to the Department of the Gulf in 1865 and mustered out August 11. Between February and April of 1865, the Battery was in New Orleans, which would put my gg grandfather Fitch of the 14th Ohio Battery and my gg grandfather Murray of the Mississippi Marine Brigade at nearly the same place in early 1865.
Alva married Emily June Edney in 1864 and they moved to Buffalo County Nebraska around 1870 after the birth of William Tecumseh Fitch in 1866. The Fitch farm was in Watertown, which existed to provide water to steam locomotives and disappeared in the 1920s after the age of steam (and after the Fitch home was struck by lightning and burned to the ground). Among his endeavors, Alva was postmaster, grain elevator operator, brickmaker, realtor, merchant, and Socialist candidate for Nebraska state senator.
Emily died in 1888 and Alva married Alice M. King, widow of Joshua R. King from Somerset, Maine who died in 1884. Joshua was also a Civil War veteran having served in the 10th Maine Infantry. He was discharged during the Battle of Chancellorsville, perhaps due to a severe wound. I don’t know whether Joshua King is related to my great grandfather Claude Eugene King who married Alva’s grand daughter Thelma.
Alvi Levi Fitch died in 1928 at age 89 and is buried in the Kearney Cemetery.
Saturday Morning, June 21 1900
Horace T. Brown Is Dead
Veteran Newspaper Man Has. Passed Away
Died at His Home In This City Last Evening — He Started the Butte Miner and Has Been Connected Northwestern Newspapers for Nearly a Quarter of a Century.
H. T. Brown the veteran newspaper man died at 11:25 p. m. yesterday at his residence, 2120 Second avenue. The surviving relatives; the widow. daughter Mrs. Alexander Howie, and his sons, Horace Jr, and Waldo, were at his bedside when he passed away. The funeral arrangements will be announced later. Mr. Brown was 55 years of age and was born in Summit County, Ohio. There he received his education and when 10 years old he with his parents moved to the town or Akron of the same State. At the latter place he entered a printing office: and was employed as devil, remaining in the employment of the company until he was 16 years of age. The civil war was raging and he enlisted. During the greater part of the war he was under the command of General Sherman. While engaged in the battle of Clarksburg, he was severely wounded in the knee, the marks of which he bore to the end.
In 1867 he moved to Virginia City, Mont. He remained at that city for four years and was successful in establishing a weekly newspaper called the “Montana.” In 1870 he moved to Deer Lodge city and there brought into existence the “New North West” newspaper. After working there four years he returned to Virginia City and worked for two years more on his first newspaper. In 1876 he went to Butte and, in partnership with Captain James Mills, established the. Butte Miner, of which he acted as manager and publisher until 1886.
He and his family then moved to Spokane and Mr. Brown with Frank Dallan bought a half interest in the Review, which was bring published here. After being connected with the Review for two years the paper was sold out to a new company. Mr. Brown next went into partnership with Henry W. Greenberg and they established a job printing office on East Riverside. After dissolving partnership with Mr. Greenberg he was successful in establishing the Northern Newspaper Union, which later was sold to the American Type Founders company. Since April, 1899, he had been an employee of the Spokesman-Review.
William Tecumseh Fitch was born in Trumbull County Ohio in 1866 and died in Oakland, California in 1932. His sister Jennie was my great grandmother and his father was Alva Levi Fitch (my great great grandfather) a Civil War veteran who served in the 14th Ohio Battery of light artillery in the Army of the Tennessee. William got his middle name from his father’s commanding general; I got mine from my great grandfather Claude King, Jennie’s husband. To my grandmother, W. T. Fitch was “Uncle B” (he was also uncle to Alva Revista Fitch).
W. T. Fitch moved West to Fort Bragg, California in the 1890s and was a photographer. In addition to studio portraits, he photographed Mendicino County landscapes and the lumber industry. His photographs and essays appeared in The Northern Crown magazine and he advertised as “Fitch, The Photo Man.”
Michiel Jansen Vreeland is in the white outer band at the 11 o’clock position.
![Threshing on the Ed King [farm] near Wood River, Nebraska.](http://memory.loc.gov/award/nbhips/lca/124/12452v.jpg){kind=link}
