It Takes More Than a Good Resume to Get a Government Contract

It takes more than a good resume to get a government contract.

Addison Alexander Lindsley (1848- )

From: “South-Western Washington.”

A. Lindsley, State Treasurer, was born in Port Waukesha, Wisconsin, in 1848. His father was a Presbyterian minister, and with his family removed to WestChester County, New York, while the subject of this sketch was an infant. Young Lindsley attended school there until he was nineteen years of age, when with his parents he came, out to Portland, Oregon, where he attended school at Forest Grove Pacific University, graduating in 1870 with the degree of bachelor of arts. He then started out in life in civil engineering and surveying for the Northern Pacific railroad, and for the United States government, being thus engaged for four years. In 1874 he went to San Francisco, where in 1880 and 1881 he held the office of city and county surveyor. For three years prior to that time he had been engaged in the coal business and various other pursuits. In 1882 he came to Clark county, purchased a farm, and has devoted his attention to agriculture ever since, having, in connection with his brother, large farming interests at Union Ridge, Clark county, which has heretofore been his place of residence. In 1885-6 Mr. Lindsley was a member of the territorial legislature, and was a delegate to the constitutional convention of 1889. In October of the same year, he was elected to the office of state treasurer, a position which he is in every way eminently qualified to occupy. Mr. Lindsley is a single man, which will be excused by a majority of the readers of this volume when they are told that he is a staunch Republican, representing the most progressive element in his party.

From: “City of Portland”

Upon the pages of the history of the northwest, in its political progress, in its material development and its commercial activity, the name of Addison Alexander Lindsley is written large. He became a resident of in 1868 and although through the intervening years he has resided n other districts, the city now claims him as one of its enterprising men, closely connected with the subsidiary interests of the lumber industry in the northwest. He was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin, December 16, 1848, a son of Aaron Ladner and Julia (West) Lindsley, the former a minister of the Presbyterian church, while Mrs. Lindsley was of old Knickerbocker stock. His first paternal ancestor in America was a Cromwellian, who fled from England at the time of the restoration. One of his paternal ancestors was wounded at the battle of Monmouth in the Revolutionary war.

A. A. Lindsley pursued his education in the private schools of the state of New York and at the Pacific University, from which he was graduated in 1870 on the completion of the classical course whereby he won the Bachelor of Arts degree. Although a native of the middle west, he became a resident of South Salem, New York, in 1851, and after living on the Atlantic coast for seventeen years, came to Portland, Oregon, in 1868. Here he resumed his interrupted simile, and as previously stated was graduated at Forest Grove. For three years thereafter he was engaged in engineering for the Northern Pacific Railroad and in surveying the Puyallup and Tulalip Indian reservations for the United States government. From 1873 until 1879 he was engaged in business in San Francisco, California, and in the latter year entered upon the duties of city and county surveyor at San Francisco, holding that position until 1881, and also serving as a member of the board of election commissioners. In the latter year he made his way northward to Clarke County, Washington, where he engaged in farming and dairying until 1889. He helped to organize and was elected first president of the Washing-ton Dairymen's Association. While agricultural affairs claimed the greater part of his time and attention he also became actively interested in politics and was accorded a position of local leadership in the ranks of the republican party. His service as a member of the territorial legislature in 1885 and 1886 brought him prominently into public notice and in 1889 he was chosen to represent his district in the constitutional convention which framed the organic law of the state. The same year he was elected state treasurer of Washington and was at the head of the financial department of the state until 1893. Following the selection of his successor he served as deputy in the state treasurer's office until 1897, and the following year came to Portland, where he has since engaged in the real-estate business, managing southern and eastern Oregon property in active connections with real-estate and irrigation enterprises. He also has mining interests in Alaska, and in that connection made trips to Klondike in 1898, 1899 and 1900 as superintendent of the Yukon Gold Company. In 1906 he became one of the organizers of The Lindsley Wright Company of which he is now the president. This company was formed to handle cedar poles, posts and piling and is conducting an extensive business, its trade constantly increasing.

On the 30th of April, 1901, Mr. Lindsley was married in Olympia, Washington, to Miss Marion Patton, a daughter of John M. Patton, a Civil war veteran and postoffice inspector who invented the system of railway mail distribution now in general use. Mr. Lindsley is the treasurer of the Oregon Society of the Sons of the American Revolution and also belongs to the Presbyterian church. His understanding of the conditions of the times, his realization of the value of opportunity and his carefully formulated plans have enabled him to work his way upward in business lines and at the same time become a potent factor in political circles and in the discussion of significant and vital themes.