Orello Eugene Frink (1855-1916)

Portrait from the History of Colorado, Volume II, 1918.

  New York native Orello Eugene Frink found his business fortune in Colorado, where he first settled in 1891. Following his move, Frink established himself in the produce and retail meat business and after moving to Fort Lupton made his mark as a canned food distributor, founding the Silver State Canning and Produce Company. In 1912 Frink had a brief flirtation with elective office when he was a candidate for the Colorado House of Representatives but lost out in that year's Democratic primary. Born in DeRuyter, New York on May 16, 1855, Orello Eugene Frink was the son of Ephraim and Lucinda (Ferguson) Frink.

  Orello Frink's education was obtained in the state of his birth and for nine years was a schoolteacher in that state. He married Junietta Patience "Etta" Peckham (1859-1952) in 1877, with whom he had four children, Clarence (1879-1945), Margurite (1881-1972), Ruby (1883-1953), and Richard Freelove (1894-1986). In 1891 he and his family left New York for Colorado and first settled in Denver. After establishing a home he embarked on a career in wholesale produce, and, later, a "retail meat market." In 1892, while still conducting business in Denver, the Frinks removed to Fort Lupton, and around 1895 he began a creamery and cheese factory.

  Within a few years of its construction, Frink's business outgrew its original confines and soon a larger business took its place, one that would become one of the largest canning facilities in the state. Operating under the name of the Silver State Canning and Produce Company, by 1912 that company could boast of 183 employees, and in that year construction began on "a warehouse 60 by 80 feet", as well as a large basement equipped with machinery for making sauerkraut. Among other vegetables canned by the company were peas, corn, tomatoes, beans, and pickles, and in addition to his canning interests "owned and operated nine different farms, on which he mostly employed Japanese help." 

  Through the succeeding years, Frink's cannery continued to expand, with their product being transported by railroad car "to San Francisco, Iowa, Texas, and the Eastern states." In the early 1900s, Frink became active in local politics, winning election to the Fort Lupton town board of trustees. In the summer of 1912, he announced his candidacy for the Colorado House of Representatives, and, running on the Democratic ticket, hoped to represent the county of Weld. 

From the Greeley Tribune, September 5, 1912.

  In an August 1912 write-up on his candidacy, Frink detailed his extensive business dealings and also made note that:

"Even if I am a candidate for state representative on the democratic ticket, I shall continue to put up Fort Lupton products more enthusiastically than ever. My wife will see to the management while I am out campaigning."

  One of three candidates vying for the Democratic nomination, Frink polled third on primary election day in September, garnering 572 votes to Charles Philip's winning total of 680. Following his defeat Frink continued with his business interests and although a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was remarked as having "contributed generously to the support of all churches." Frink died of heart failure at his Fort Lupton home on November 11, 1916, aged 61. His wife Etta survived him by nearly forty years, dying at age 93 in 1952. Both were interred at the Hillside Cemetery in Fort Lupton.

From the Windsor Beacon, November 16, 1916.

Alos Blank Shaner (1855-1928)

Alos Blank Shaner, from the "Poultry Tribune", Vol. 23, 1917.

    The small city of Lanark, Illinois can lay claim to electing a truly odd-named man as its Mayor--Alos Blank Shaner. A one-term mayor of this Carroll County city (whose population hovered around the 1,500 mark as of the 2010 census), Shaner was an avowed advocate of temperance and in addition to serving as a Mayor and alderman was engaged in a rather unusual past-time, one as far removed from politics as one can imagine--the breeding of chickens! Shaner gained wide prominence throughout the United States as a poultry judge and breeder, even serving as a member of the American Poultry Association Board of Judges.

    A resident of Pennsylvania for the first fifteen years of his life, Alos Blank Shaner was born in Frederick, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania on March 16, 1855, one of five children born to John and Maria Shaner. The Shaner family left Pennsylvania in 1870 and settled in Ogle County, Illinois, where Alos would complete his schooling. In January 1877 Shaner married Fanny C. Oltmans (1857-1955), with whom he would have three children, John Albert (1880-1942) Ina (birth-date unknown), and Iva (1895-1973).

   Early in his Illinois residency Alos Shaner began an interest in farming and the raising of poultry, and after removing to Carroll County in the early 1880s continued to build a reputation as a "poultry fancier" and breeder. A specialist in the breeding of "Barred Plymouth Rocks, Buff Leghorns and Colchins" as well as Poland-China hogs, Shaner's reputation in these fields was spotlighted by the Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois, which notes that he:

"Won his success in the poultry business through careful study and patient effort, and has mastered the full details of his work. Though he abandoned the hog raising industry when he located in Lanark, he still has engagements to act as a judge of hogs and sheep at several live stock shows and state fairs."

    Shaner's status as a poultry judge wasn't just limited to Illinois, however. From the start of his judging career in 1894 Shaner would visit and judge poultry exhibitions in a total of "twenty-nine states, many of them several times", and by the early 1900s was residing in Lanark, Illinois on a "high-class chicken farm." A lifetime member of the American Poultry Association (as well as a member of its board of judges), Shaner was a longstanding advocate of temperance and held the office of President of the Carroll County Law and Order League, as well as the County Temperance League. 
   It wasn't until Shaner settled in Lanark that he began to seek political office, and in 1902 ran on the Prohibition ticket for the Illinois General Assembly. Hoping to represent the state's 12th district in the assembly, Shaner placed fourth out of four candidates on election day, polling only 812 votes to winning Republican candidate James E. Taggart's 12, 481. An electoral result from that election (featured in the Daily News Almanac) is shown below.

    Several years following his assembly loss Alos Shaner was elected as a Lanark city alderman and was still serving in that post when he was elected as Mayor of Lanark in 1911. Little information could be located on his time as mayor (as well as the length of his term), but it has been found that he was a "former mayor" by April 1914, being mentioned as such in a Pacific Poultry Craft magazine published that year. Following his term as mayor Shaner would continue to be active in poultry showings and in January 1917 won several awards for his birds at a Cedar Rapids, Iowa exhibition. 

   On February 14, 1928, Alos Blank Shaner died in Lanark at the age of 72. He was survived by his wife and two children and was interred at the Lanark City Cemetery. Fanny O. Shaner survived Alos by nearly thirty years, dying in 1955 at age 98, and was laid to rest at the same cemetery as her husband.

Alos B. Shaner, from the Poultry Garden and Home, Vol. 5, 1898.

Godolphin Finney Burslem (1855-?)

Portrait from the Representative Men of New York, Volume II, 1898.

  The picturesque life of Godolphin Burslem is examined today, and after reading the following passages on his life, I'm certain you'll agree that the mustachioed man above lived a life of intrigue and mystery! Burslem ran an unsuccessful campaign for the New York State Assembly in 1896, but it is the other aspects of his life (that of a con man and criminal) that will lend quite a bit of color to this article. Godolphin Finney Burslem was born in Great Britain on May 6, 1855, into a family prominent in the English military. He attended the Woolrich Military School in 1870 and the next year began service in the Royal Horse Artillery. 
   In 1874 he journeyed to South Africa and eventually became caught up in the Zulu War, which began in 1879. During his service in that  war, Burslem lost a leg at the Battle of Isandlwana and later had it replaced by one made of cork (and here is where his story starts to get interesting; it was later determined that Finney actually lost his leg in a gun carriage accident during the final months of the war.) While he may have been exposed as a humbug late in his life, it is obvious that Burslem did have a noteworthy military career early on.
  After returning home to Great Britain Burslem began a shadowy career as a swindler and fraudster. A brief snippet of his criminal beginnings was chronicled in the New York Times in 1901 and is shown below.

   In September 1885 he was arrested for securities fraud in Cockerill, England, and subsequently jailed. He was released from prison in 1889 and in January 1890 immigrated to the United States. The 1898 work entitled Representative Men of New York, Volume II, gives a very "clean" overview of Burslem's life (his frauds hadn't been exposed yet) and notes that in 1891 "he entered the publishing business which he followed for some time with great success". Later on, this same work details that after engaging in banking and brokerage pursuits, Burslem "succeeded in incorporating forty-three companies, possessing an aggregate capitalization of $23,000,000." One can pretty much read between the lines here and see that this was likely embellishment on the part of Burslem, who obviously kept his stint in jail a secret from the book's editor, Jay Henry Mowbray. The aforementioned book also relates other factual inaccuracies about Burslem's life, such as his settlement in Buffalo in 1885 and his job as a purchasing agent for the Metropolitan Hotel in New York City.

A Burslem campaign notice from the New York Times, 1896.

   In 1896 Burslem's apparently "sterling" reputation got him noticed by the Democratic Party in New York City, which subsequently nominated him for a seat in the state assembly. The above New York Times snippet for the assembly seat lists Burslem as a member of the ill-reputed Tammany Hall and mentions him as an insurance agent. The results of the campaign (which Burslem lost) were posted in the New York Times a few days after the election. You'll notice that he placed a respectable second out of a field of six candidates, being defeated by Republican nominee Robert Mazet by over three thousand votes.

   Between this election and 1901 little is known of Burslem's life, but what life he had carved for himself was brought to an end in December 1900 when a bench warrant was issued for his arrest on the charge of larceny, having stolen a sum of $40 from Caroline Krager of Elberon, New Jersey. Burslem would escape New York City shortly afterward and was later arrested in Boston in July of 1901. Following his return to New York City, he was incarcerated at the infamous "Tombs" jail, being held on $1000 bail.

  Godolphin Burslem was convicted of larceny in February 1902 and when sentenced, pleaded for clemency. The final New York Times article mentioning him was published shortly after his conviction and is posted in its entirety below. Strangely, none of these articles dealing with his arrest mention his earlier candidacy for the state assembly.

  The end of Godolphin Burslem's life is as mysterious as the rest of the facts presented above. It appears that after his 1902 conviction, Burslem disappeared from the pages of history for the most part. He is recorded as an inmate in the 1905 New York State census, and it isn't conclusively established what happened to him after this date. It can be surmised that he may have died in jail or could have possibly returned to England after serving his sentence. I suppose it will forever remain a mystery, much like the man himself!

  For those who may want to read the "clean" version of Burslem's life (as published in 1898 in the Representative Men of New York mentioned earlier), it has been posted below, as it was originally found on the website www.archive.com.

http://www.archive.org/stream/representativeme02mowb#page/n79/mode/2up