Payne,  John,  a  gentleman  well  known  in  financial  and  social  circles  in
Palousc,  Wash.,  furnishes  us  with  the  facts  for  the  following  account  of  the
Palouae  Farmers'  Bank  of  that  city.  Its  birth  as  an  institution  bears  date  June
4th,  1892.  That  fortune  smiled  upon  its  advent  is  assured  by  an  endowment  of
$35,000  in  hard  cash  contributed  by  its  stockholders.  Its  legal  guardians  and
advisers,  who  take  the  place  of  sponsors  to  this  new-born  financial  child,  and
stand  in  loco  parentis,  are  Benjamin  Norman,  President ;  F.  L.  Bell,  Vice-Presi-
dent ;  and  John  Payne,  Cashier — a  strong  and  goodly  array,  whose  careful  man-
agement and  wise  counsel  will  doubtless  so  direct  its  growth  and  manage  its
patrimony  as  to  bring  it  to  a  wealthy  and  respectable  old  age,  being  benefited  by
and  in  return  doing  good  to  many.  As  it  is,  it  is  growing  and  gaining  quite  as
rapidly  as  a  healthy  increase  would  warrant,  and  bids  fair  to  justify  the  most
sanguine  expectations  of  its  many  friends  and  well  wishers.
Pearson,  Charles  W.,  hotel-keeper,  of  Starbuck,  Wash.,  was  born  in  Rio
Vista,  Cal.,  August  3d,  1870.  His  father,  J.  S.  Pearson,  was  a  large  farmer  and
an  old  pioneer  of  California  ;  his  mother,  Anna  (Watson)  Pearson,  was  a  native
of  New  Brunswick.  Educated  in  the  public  schools  of  California,  supplemented
by  a  commercial  course  at  the  business  college  at  Walla  Walla,  young  Pearson
located  at  Starbuck,  where  he  engaged  in  the  hotel  and  butchering  business,
which  he  continues  to  carry  on.  He  has  been  fortunate  in  his  investments  and  is
a  considerable  property-owner,  having  a  profitable  fruit  farm  in  the  county,  be-


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684  HISTORY   OF   WASHINGTON.
