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JOHN McPHERSON.--The
subject of this sketch was born June 14th, 1842, at Almond
bank, near Perth, Scotland, and came to the United States in 1868,
locating in business in Chicago. In 1871 he returned to his Scotland home
for a visit and on coming back to America he was accompanied by his
sister, Mrs. James Loomis, and his brother-in-law, John Nelson and family,
all of whom came to Colorado with him in 1873. Mr. McPherson and Mr.
Nelson secured farms a short distance southeast of Fort Collins and were
the first in the vicinity to take water for irrigation from the Larimer
county canal No. 2. They built the first fence put up on the bluff lands
between the Cache la Poudre and Big Thompson rivers. Mr. McPherson sold
his farm in 1881 and two years later moved to Fort Collins and was for one
year manager of the Farmer’s elevator. After resigning from that position
in 1884, he engaged in building operations, the McPherson block, now
occupied by the Gem Grocery, one of the most substantial business blocks
in Fort Collins, was erected by him that year. He was a stone cutter by
occupation and evidence of his handiwork crop out in a number of the best
buildings in the city. Five children, Mrs. Walter Beach and John, both of
Fort Collins, Fred of Shoshone, Wyoming, Andrew (residence not known) and
Mrs. R. J. Handy of Rochester, New York, survive him. |
