CFH First Draft: John Callin (1872-1940)

 This post is part of an ongoing series, sharing the first draft of my Revised Callin Family History. 

John Callin is the 79th person in a descendant report beginning with the earliest known ancestor of our Callin family, (1.) James Callin. This descendant report uses the Register Style of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society. 

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Fourth Generation

79. John Callin (Marquis-4, Thomas-3, James-2, James-1) was born in Jan 1872 and grew up in Wauseon, Fulton County, Ohio. His mother died when he was 9 years old, and his father’s fate is not really known. John and his older brother, Fred, seem to have taken to working on railroads and steamboats in the Pacific Northwest. They each ran into legal problems in Seattle in 1890 and 1892, as reported in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on 23 and 24 Jul 1892.

"Callin's Hearing Is Postponed.

"John Callin, the youth who is charged by D.W. McFail with stealing $35 while news agent on the Great Northern trains, was arraigned for hearing yesterday before Justice Von Tobel. The examination was postponed until this afternoon and, in default of $500 bonds, Callin was sent to jail. Callin, who is only 17 years old, is a brother of Fred S. Callin, who on August 24, 1890, while freight clerk on the steamer Idaho, was arrested upon a charge of stealing $1,000 in gold from an express package containing $5,000 which was being sent by the Northwestern Express Company to a bank at La Conner. After several weeks in jail he was tried in the superior court and acquitted."

 

"Newsboy Callin Goes Scot Free.

"John Callin, the 17-year-old newsboy on the Great Northern train who was apprehended in Tacoma and returned to this city for examination upon a charge of grand larceny, was discharged last evening by Justice Von Tobel. The complaining witness, Daniel McFail, admitted that there was a partnership between himself and the boy, and the justice immediately declared that such being the case the defendant could not be prosecuted for grand larceny. He accordingly dismissed the case."

John took to working in the hospitality trade, spending time in Seattle and in the Alaska Territory, working in restaurants and hotels. He married Nina Louise Gifford abt. 1915, probably in Seattle. Nina was the daughter of William Henry Gifford (1848–1911) and Lena Ingraham (1840–1916), born in Sep 1877 and raised in Seattle and Duwamish, King County, Washington.

Jack and Nina lived in Anchorage, Alaska, from at least 1920, where he ran the Callin Motor Company of Anchorage. They returned to Seattle after 1935, and Nina died there on 30 May 1938. She was buried in Lake View Cemetery in Seattle, King County, Washington.

Jack married Edith L Ferris (1885–1959) on 9 Dec 1938 in King County, Washington. Edith was the daughter of Oliver Spencer Ferris (1855–1928) and Harriet Hunt (1862–1924), born on 8 Jun 1885 in Blue Ash, Hamilton County, Ohio. She graduated from the Presbyterian Hospital School for Nurses in Chicago, Illinois, in Jun 1909, and by 1923, she was the superintendent of nursing at Pomona Valley Hospital, in Pomona, Los Angeles County, California. She relocated to Seattle after 1935, and she and Jack lived there in 1940.

Jack died on 21 May 1940 in Renton, King County, Washington, and was buried with Nina in Lake View Cemetery in Seattle. Edith remarried William James Garner (1880–1959); she died on 26 Sep 1959 in Renton, King, Washington, and was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Renton.