Montgomery Cemetery ~ Henry Dewitt Staats ~ part of the Polk County Pioneer Cemeteries of Oregon
Staats, Henry Dewitt
LAST: Staats FIRST: Henry MID: Dewitt
GENDER: M MAIDEN NAME:  TITLE: 
BORN: 18 Jan 1850 DIED: 13 May 1919 BURIED: 20 May 1919 (Montgomery Cemetery)
OCCUPATION:  
BIRTH PLACE:  Airlie, Polk Co., Oregon
DEATH PLACE: Dallas, Polk Co., Oregon
NOTES: 

Name of father Isaac Staats
Maiden name of mother Orlena Williams
1870 OR CENSUS - Henry Staats, age 20, single, b. Oregon, is enumerated with Isaac, age 55, occupation farmer, b. New York, and Orelena, age 42, b. Tennessee, along with John O., age 18, b. Oregon, Isaac M., age 16, b. Oregon, Clarance, age 12, b. Oregon, Asa C., age 8, b. Oregon, and Mary, age 6, b. Oregon.
1st MARRIAGE - "Henry D. Staats & Mary E. Zumwalt, m 18 Feb 1873 at house of Isaac Zumwalt; J. H. Myers, Co. J. Wit: Jno J. Daly & J. M. Staats Bk B pg 175."
1880 OR CENSUS - H. D. Staats, age 30, occupation farmer, b. Oregon, is enumerated with wife M. E., age 27, b. Oregon, along with sons I. G., age 6, b. Oregon, and E. W., age 4, b. Oregon. 
1900 OR CENSUS - Henry D. Staats. age 50, widowed, occupation farmer, b. Jan 1850 in Oregon, is enumerated with son, Tracy I., age 27, single, occupation school teacher, b. Feb 1873 in Oregon.  Also enumerated with the family are Nora Church, identified as servant, occupation housekeeper, b. Oregon, William A. Robertson, identified as servant, age 22, occupation farm laborer, b. Oregon, and Robert G. Bruce, identified as servant, age 13, b. Oregon.
2nd MARRIAGE: H.D. Staats & Mrs Nora M. Church md 9 July 1903 
NOTE - Second wife Nora was born 8 July 1869 near Falls City, Polk Co, Ore, daughter of George W. Hubbard. She married 29 Nov 1885 to Ronald B. Bruce [Polk Co marriage records] by whom she had 2 children. She married second on 17 Mar 1894 to Benjamin F. Church [Polk Co marriage records]. They were divorced in 1902 [Polk Co divorce case 3250, Oregon State Archives]. Benjamin died 1909 and is buried in Fir Crest cemetery. After Henry's death Nora moved to Eastern Oregon to live with her son. She died 11 June 1943 at LaGrande, Union Co, Oregon, and was buried at LaGrande [OSBH DC 1943 Union Co #83]

BIOGRAPHICAL
(Source - Hines, An Illustrated history of Oregon, pg 860):
Henry Staats, one of Polk county’s most successful farmers, has the honor of being one of Oregon’s native sons, he having been born in Polk county, January 18, 1850. His father, Isaac Staats, was born in New York, of German parents, and came to Oregon in 1845, a young man without money to push his own way in the world, to make a home in the beautiful Willamette valley, and to do what he could in his humble way to found a State. He “builded better than he knew,” for to him we are indebted for aid in laying the foundation of the great commonwealth of Oregon. He crossed the plains with his brother Stephen, and took his donation claim on the Luckamute. Here he built his log cabin and lived on the “ground floor,” with 640 acres of choice land about him, of which he was the owner. The Oregon pioneers were “monarchs of all they surveyed,” but their land had no money value, and they were without proper implements to cultivate the soil with. They were largely sustained by their faith in the future. They lived on faith and boiled wheat, and many were the dangers and hardships that they were obliged to pass through, and from none of these was Mr. Staats, Sr., exempt, but he was destined to see brighter days. In 1846 he married Miss Orlena Williams, a native of Tennessee, and the daughter of Mr. J.E. Williams, a pioneer of the same year as Mr. Staats. Then the little home of the young pioneer was made to smile with the presence of God’s best gift to man, a good wife. They lived and loved and toiled together to improve the home and raise the means of life. To them came, as the years went by, a nice family of seven children, all of whom are living, save one, Isaac W., who died in his eighteenth year. The others are all respectable citizens, and reside mostly in the vicinity where they were born and reared. Their names are: James M.; H.D., subject; J.O.; Clarence E.; Asa C.; Mary I., married Mr. Dalton, but is now a widow.
Mr. Staats’ life in the new and undeveloped country was an upright and honorable one, and for some twenty-five years he was honored by his neighbors with the office of Justice of the Peace. He also had the honor of being the first Postmaster appointed on the Luckamute, under the administration of James Buchanan. He died in the seventy-fifth year of his age. He was a man of sterling moral character, and enjoyed the confidence and esteem of all his neighbors. His wife survives him and is beloved by all who know her. She is in the sixty-sixth year of her age, and resides with her son, Asa C., in Airlie, where most of her children reside.
The son, Henry D., was reared on the farm, educated in the public school, and began life farming his father’s land on shares. He continued in this business for six or seven years, and he then purchased 200 acres of land, on which he built, and which he improved by honest, well directed effort. He prospered and became able to add to his land, until he now has 471 acres of one of the best, and under his management one of the best paying farms in Polk county, a county noted for its many farms.
Mr. Staats was married February 8, 1873, to Miss Mary E. Zumwalt. She is a native of Oregon, daughter of Mr. Isaac Zumwalt, a pioneer of 1847. Mr. and Mrs. Staats have two sons: Irvin Tracy, now a graduate of the State Normal School, and a young man of great promise; and Emmit is still at home with his parents. Mr. Staats is wide-awake successful farmer, and his record is such as to reflect credit upon himself and the State in which he was born.


OBITUARY: 
Henry Staats, a native son of Polk county, died at his home in Dallas, Sunday, of heart trouble, an ailment with which he has been afflicted for years. Mr Staats was born in the vicinity of Airlie sixty-nine years ago, and while he lived for a time in Benton county was practically all his life a resident of Polk county. He owned the farm on which Fred Huber is at present the tenant, but has lived for some time past in Dallas. He is survived by two sons, Emmett Staats of Monmouth and Tracy Staats of Dallas. Funeral services were held Tuesday afternoon with burial in the Montgomery cemetery, southwest of Lewisville. Monmouth Herald, Friday, May 23, 1919, 1:5
INSCRIPTION: 
H. D. Staats
Jan. 18, 1850
May 13, 1919
SOURCES: 
Saucy Survey & Photographs
OSBH DC (Polk County 1919) #68
1870 OR CENSUS (Polk Co., Luckiamute, FA #670)
Polk County Oregon Marriage Records, 1849-1879, pg 58
1880 OR CENSUS (Polk Co., B.Vista/Luckiamute, ED 107, 18B)
1900 OR CENSUS (Polk Co., Luckiamute, ED 176, sheet 2B)
Polk County Oregon Marriage Records, Vol 6, page 206
Hines, An Illustrated history of Oregon, pg 860
MH 23 May 1919, 1:5
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