History of Kemper Freeman, Jr
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| Kemper Freeman Jr |
Frederick Kemper Freeman Jr. (born October 23, 1941) is the active chairman and CEO of Kemper Development Company, which built and operates Bellevue Square, Bellevue Place, and Lincoln Square, all located in Bellevue, Washington. Kemper represents the third generation of the Freeman family, who have been involved in the growth of the Bellevue community since 1897.
In 1973, F. Kemper Freeman Jr. was appointed to a vacant seat in the Washington State House of Representatives as a Republican representing the 48th district.
After serving for three years, Kemper resigned to focus on his business.
F. Kemper Freeman Jr. is active chairman and CEO of Kemper Development Company, which built and operates Bellevue Square, Bellevue Place and Lincoln Square.
Kemper Freeman Jr. is a third-generation resident of Bellevue, Washington - grandson of Miller Freeman, Sr.
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Excerpt from Sumie Suguro Akizuki's oral history interview conducted on October 30, 2008
RE: Miller Freeman Sr.
John Hoomes (Holmes) Freeman (1779-1873) - a former slave?
22 Aug. 1805 "John Hoomes Freeman assumes the duties of overseer at Monticello"
John’s wife was Melinda Colbert Freeman
After serving for three years, Kemper resigned to focus on his business.
F. Kemper Freeman Jr. is active chairman and CEO of Kemper Development Company, which built and operates Bellevue Square, Bellevue Place and Lincoln Square.
Kemper Freeman Jr. is a third-generation resident of Bellevue, Washington - grandson of Miller Freeman, Sr.
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Excerpt from Sumie Suguro Akizuki's oral history interview conducted on October 30, 2008
RE: Miller Freeman Sr.
Kemper Freeman Jr Ancestors
22 Aug. 1805 "John Hoomes Freeman assumes the duties of overseer at Monticello"
John’s wife was Melinda Colbert Freeman
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Father of:
Arthur Ryland Robertson Freeman (1806-1868), a railroad agent, who married Mary Allison Kemper (1815-1881).
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Arthur and Mary's Son's - Frederick and Legh Richmond
Frederick Kemper Freeman
(b. June 15th 1841, Virginia – d. September 9th 1928 Albany, Georgia)
Frederick Kemper Freeman attended Kemper Family School, later known as Kemper Military School (Frederick Thomas Kemper (1816 – March 9, 1881, brother was General James L. Kemper) was the founder of the school), in Boonville, Missouri, and Kemper College in Gordonsville.
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Brother of Frederick was Legh Richmond Freeman:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/106242380/leigh-richmond-freeman
Legh (Leigh) Richmond Freeman Sr (above) ( Dec 4th 1842 - Feb 7th 1915) father of sons, including:
F. Kemper Freeman Sr (1910-1982, above), father of:
Kemper Freeman Jr (above)
F. Kemper Freeman Jr (b. 1941 -). - current Land Developer of Bellevue, Washington
Both original Freeman brothers were from Culpeper, Culpeper County, Virginia.
Miller Freeman on his father, Legh Richmond Freeman:
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Legh's Wife #1 Ada V. (nee Miller) died 1879;
[wife #2- Mary R. (Whitaker) Freeman - married 11 July 1900 in St. Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota;
wife #3-Unknown; wife #4-Janie (Ward) Freeman]
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On 9 May 1861 Frederick Kemper Freeman enlisted in the Confederate army, in which he participated in the battle of Manassas and rose to the rank of lieutenant in the Signal Corps.
Frederick's brother Legh Richmond Freeman was a Confederate soldier too.
Legh joined Morgan’s Raiders during the Civil War, and was sent to tap into telegraph wires, sending false information to the North and bringing "true" information to Morgan.
Legh Freeman was captured in Kentucky in May, 1864 and sent to Rock Island prison.
In February, 1865, Legh became a "Galvanized Yankee," a term denoting former Confederate prisoners of war who swore allegiance to the United States and joined the Union Army, and was sent west to Fort Kearney, Nebraska Territory -- where he arrived almost the same day the war ended.
Legh first became the telegraph operator at Fort Kearney.
By December 1865, Legh bought an old printing press and started the Kearney Herald where he would take news right off the Overland Telegraph wire and put it in the paper. But the troops were leaving the fort for action out west, and the Union Pacific Railroad construction was fast approaching. So Legh wrote for his brother Frederick to join him, moved the press out of the Fort to the town of Kearny, NT, and began the newspaper in earnest.
Frederick's career in frontier journalism, for which he is principally known, began in the spring of 1866 when his brother Legh Richmond Freeman asked him to take over the Kearney Herald.
While Legh traveled around the West and sent dispatches to his brother, Frederick managed the daily activities of the newspaper, which he initially published on an old hand-roller press. Shortly after taking over the paper, he moved operations out of Fort Kearny and into Kearny City.
In the Fall of 1866, railroad construction proceeded beyond Kearny City. Frederick loaded his printing equipment on three wagons and traveled a hundred miles to the next railhead, North Platte, Nebraska Territory, whose rowdy population earned it the nickname "Hell on Wheels".
The Freemans' newspaper, which they had renamed the Frontier Index, also quickly earned a nickname, the "Press on Wheels".
Frederick's career in frontier journalism, for which he is principally known, began in the spring of 1866 when his brother Legh Richmond Freeman asked him to take over the Kearney Herald.
While Legh traveled around the West and sent dispatches to his brother, Frederick managed the daily activities of the newspaper, which he initially published on an old hand-roller press. Shortly after taking over the paper, he moved operations out of Fort Kearny and into Kearny City.
In the Fall of 1866, railroad construction proceeded beyond Kearny City. Frederick loaded his printing equipment on three wagons and traveled a hundred miles to the next railhead, North Platte, Nebraska Territory, whose rowdy population earned it the nickname "Hell on Wheels".
The Freemans' newspaper, which they had renamed the Frontier Index, also quickly earned a nickname, the "Press on Wheels".
Between 1866 and 1868 the paper rolled through Fort Sanders, Laramie City, Benton, and Green River City in Dakota Territory and Bear River City in Wyoming Territory.
During one of these moves, a wagon and equipment weighing close to 7,000 pounds ran over Frederick, causing spinal and internal injuries and hospitalizing him for two months at Fort Sanders
Legh, often writing under pseudonym "General Horatio Vattel, Lightning Scout of the Mountains," contributed sayings, travel narratives, and tall tales about an enormous buck sheep and a petrified forest.
Frederick handled news about railroad construction, "Indians", stage schedules, and the weather.
Both brothers, however, were capable of producing incendiary material.
Frederick accused a Fort Sanders general of being a southern sympathizer who supported Grant in order to advance his own career.
However, Frederick, who also owned hotels and speculated on real estate, used editorial space to criticize western rowdiness as well.
In an article published on May 29th 1868, Frederick wrote,
"Our citizens should support a strong police force and help them to put down crime and rowdyism. We were told yesterday of two bands of horse thieves and highwaymen that have their dens on Crow and Dale creeks, each numbering thirty or forty men. They are circling around Laramie, playing Indian. We say go for 'em."
The Freemans' controversial reporting may have contributed to the dramatic end of their enterprise in Bear River City in November 1868.
A mob of railroad workers , reportedly led by a relative of a man imprisoned or killed by vigilantes, destroyed the Freemans' equipment and burned their office.
The riot, in which more than a dozen people may have died, has been blamed on various factors, including the Freemans' association with vigilantes and the paper's harsh treatment of Grant and Mormons.
Legh himself blamed the Credit Mobilier fraud ring, which the Freemans supposedly had angered.
Frederick, on the other hand, claimed that railroad owners arranged the riot to remove the brothers from land holding huge coal supplies. Whatever the reason for the riot, both brothers returned to Virginia. Frederick left behind careers in not only journalism and business but politics.
Legh met and married Ada Miller in 1869, and together they came west, first to Rock Springs, Wyoming, where Legh hoped to benefit from the lucrative coal mines there. But that venture was not successful, so Legh, Ada and their two sons arrived in Ogden, Utah, 1874 believing they had the support of the Mormons -- after having met with Brigham Young 5 years earlier.
Legh Richmond Freeman and Ada Miller-Freeman began publishing The Ogden Freeman, a four page, semi-weekly paper, with the first issue on Sept 5, 1876. Ada handled day-to-day operations while Legh travelled to gather news and sell advertising. They must have been optimistic about their business chances as they had plans to convert The Ogden Freeman to a daily paper in December, 1876.
Legh had, in his other papers, regularly blasted Ulysses Grant, whom he called a "whisky bloated, squaw ravishing adulterer".
Legh and Ada were gentiles deep into Mormon country. The Freeman brothers early association with vigilantes and paper's harsh treatment of Grant and Mormons caught up to Legh.
The local community turned against Legh Freeman to run him out of Ogden, UT -- which they did.
Legh and Ada had decided on Montana, and while Legh was already in Glendale and Butte getting his business set up, Ada loaded two wagons full of personal belongings and printing equipment, with her four sons, Randolph (9), Hoomes (6), Legh Miller (4) born 1875, and Smohalla (1) and with Ada driving one of the wagons and a printer the other, headed north to Glendale and Butte, Montana.
Ada later died of an accidental gunshot to the hip.
MEMORY'S BEGINNING (a story of his mother) by Miller Freeman
"As we were traveling along somewhere in the upper Red Rock Creek Valley a shotgun which was carried hanging in the loops of some straps in the wagon became dislodged and fell into the spokes of the front wheel of the wagon in such a way that it was discharged, wounding my Mother in the hip. The explosion of that gun and the confusion which followed are my earliest recollection. My Mother was taken to Butte and placed in a hospital. Just how, I cannot say. My next memory is when they took me to the hospital that I might see my Mother before she died. This bitter visit I remember well. I was ushered in to see my mother, and I remember vividly that she said to me: "Legh, I know you will always be a good boy". Those are the only words of my mother which I can recall, but from the uttering of them the years are plain in my recollection."
August 27th 1880, Legh Richmond Freeman wrote a letter calling son Legh Miller Freeman as Miller for the first time (above copy).
See Miller Freeman's explanation:
Miller Freeman began to occupy land on the North side of the Montlake "Cut" canal now UW Stadium, Hospital and Medical Center.
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Again following brother Legh farther West, Frederick Freeman became a frontier journalist again in 1892, an industry now beloved by nephew Miller Freeman
This time, the Freemans operated an agricultural paper, the Washington Farmer, in Anacortes, Washington.
Legh Richmond Freeman's son Hoomes Jr died in British Colombia during the Gold Rush; son Randolph left, Miller stayed West.
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Legh's brother Frederick left journalism and moved back to Georgia, where he grew pecans and ran a wholesale grocery business.
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In 1896 Frederick Kemper Freeman married Mary Julia Roper.
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In 1904, Miller Freeman Sr, Grandfather of Kemper Freeman Jr., was a prominent voice calling for the segregation or deportation of Japanese immigrants, whom he saw as a threat to white prosperity.
[Sample of Miler Freeman's memoir RE: Japanese fishers]
Republican Miller Freeman fired off a letter to President Theodore Roosevelt reporting two Japanese schooners had been fishing off Alaska. Roosevelt sent a Coast Guard cutter to Funter Bay, where the schooners were operating, seizing them and imprisoning and later deporting their crews. “There was no diplomatic note-writing, and no war,” Freeman later wrote.
According to Freeman, he then prevailed upon the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries to establish regulations forbidding “aliens ineligible for citizenship”—in other words, all Asians, but specifically the Japanese—from fishing in Alaskan waters. Freeman apparently believed the incident played a role in inspiring Roosevelt to pursue the 1907 “Gentlemen’s Agreement”—in which Japan agreed to cease permitting any further immigration from its shores—two years later.
As Miller later described it, “I got on the warpath of wholesale immigration of Japanese to the Pacific Coast in 1907, and joined up with others in making such a rumpus about it that Theodore Roosevelt finally took it upon himself to notify Japan that colonization of our Pacific Coast areas would have to be stopped.”
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Miller Freeman says a 'Yellow Peril' is ahead and publishes article in The Seattle Times in 1910:
Source: http://ddr.densho.org/ddr-densho-56-175/
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| Beneath the lead-in was a small portrait of Miller Freeman, with a caption: “Sees Menace in Japanese Here.” |
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USS Monitor Cheyenne - 1910 Elliot Bay brought up West Coast by Miller Freeman Sr.
1912 Miller Freeman Sr. (A) and Salmon Industry Canners
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Legh (Leigh) Richmond Freeman Sr, father of Legh Miller Freeman, dies Feb 7th 1915 in Yakima County, WA and is buried in Tahoma Cemetery
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Miller Freeman Sr, Founder and Commanding Officer, Naval Training Camp, Seattle World War 1: August 2, 1917 - January 6, 1919
In 1916, Miller Freeman Sr, father of F. Kemper Freeman Sr. and grandfather of Kemper Freeman Jr., founded the Anti-Japanese League of Washington.
Miller Freeman Sr denied his campaign was driven by racial animus, saying he “harbors no enmity toward the Japanese. They are a wonderfully bright people, frugal and industrious. But they are Orientals. We are Caucasians. Oil and water do not mix.” Over the ensuing decades, that became Freeman’s motto.
Miller Freeman Sr. stayed active in state politics as a driving force in anti-Japanese discrimination, agitating for what he called a "white man's Pacific coast", and was a vocal proponent for Washington State's 1921 Alien Land Laws, the 1924 Immigration Act -- and soon to come, the 1942 incarceration of Japanese in America.
Miller Freeman Sr and family also moved in ~1925-1928 from Seattle to a 14-room mansion on Groat’s Point in Medina.
[https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/29/1922855/-Bellevue-College-faces-furor-over-attempt-to-whitewash-a-city-father-s-white-supremacist-legacy]
Miller Freeman Sr and family
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Miller Freeman and 3 sons 1939
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1941 Miller Freeman called for and got a meeting of Japanese community leaders with the apparently self-appointed “Special Committee” whose work was announced in a front-page brief in the Bellevue American
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1941 Miller Freeman called for and got a meeting of Japanese community leaders with the apparently self-appointed “Special Committee” whose work was announced in a front-page brief in the Bellevue American
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Kemper Freeman Sr
In 1944, F. Kemper Freeman Sr (1910-1982), father of Kemper Freeman Jr., convinced the U.S. government a local Theatre would boost civic morale, and got permission to use lumber (precious during wartime) for the construction of the 560-seat Bel-Vue Theatre, first building on the Bellevue Square site, and March 20th, 1946 opened the first mall, Bellevue Square, in downtown Bellevue -- where strawberry farms had been just a few years earlier. This caused unprecedented business growth nearby, which has continued unabated into the 1990s.
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L. Miller Freeman Sr, father of F. Kemper Freeman Sr and son of Confederate soldier Legh Richmond Freeman, pays a nickel on the Lake Washington Floating bridge in 1949. (above)
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L. Miller Freeman liked a joke about "looking Indian" and was nicknamed "Big Chief"
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1955 - (Legh) Miller Freeman Sr., father of F. Kemper Freeman Sr, dies age 80.
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Frederick "Kemper Freeman" Sr, father of Kemper Freeman Jr., dies in 1982.
(Son of L. Miller Freeman Sr, grandson of Legh Richmond Freeman)
Kemper Freeman Sr
In 1944, F. Kemper Freeman Sr (1910-1982), father of Kemper Freeman Jr., convinced the U.S. government a local Theatre would boost civic morale, and got permission to use lumber (precious during wartime) for the construction of the 560-seat Bel-Vue Theatre, first building on the Bellevue Square site, and March 20th, 1946 opened the first mall, Bellevue Square, in downtown Bellevue -- where strawberry farms had been just a few years earlier. This caused unprecedented business growth nearby, which has continued unabated into the 1990s.
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L. Miller Freeman Sr, father of F. Kemper Freeman Sr and son of Confederate soldier Legh Richmond Freeman, pays a nickel on the Lake Washington Floating bridge in 1949. (above)
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L. Miller Freeman liked a joke about "looking Indian" and was nicknamed "Big Chief"
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1955 - (Legh) Miller Freeman Sr., father of F. Kemper Freeman Sr, dies age 80.
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Frederick "Kemper Freeman" Sr, father of Kemper Freeman Jr., dies in 1982.
(Son of L. Miller Freeman Sr, grandson of Legh Richmond Freeman)
SOURCES
Extant copies of the Frontier Index are stored at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley.
Letters of the Freeman family are in the James Lawson Kemper File at the Alderman Library Manuscripts Department, University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
Almost all the published information relating to Frederick Freeman concerns his role in publishing the Frontier Index.
One particularly thorough source on the Freemans and their newspaper is Thomas Heuterman, Movable Type: Biography of Legh R. Freeman (1979).
Brief descriptions of the Frontier Index also appear in James Melvin Lee, History of American Journalism (1923);
Robert F. Karolevitz., Newspapering in the Old West: A Pictorial History of Journalism and Printing on the Frontier (1965);
and John Myers Myers, Print in a Wild Land (1967).
Legh Freeman wrote his own account of the newspaper, The History of the Frontier-Index (the "Press on Wheels"), the Ogden Freeman, the Inter-Mountains Freeman and the Union Freeman, which Douglas C. McMurtrie edited and published in 1943.
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