Lewis Ankeny McArthur
1883–1951
Omar C. Spencer
Lewis Ankeny McArthur, or "Tam" as he was known to all his friends, was born at The Dalles, Oregon, on April 27, 1883. He died at Portland, Oregon, on November 8, 1951. He came by the name of Tam from his early youth because his older brother, Clifton, tried to call him Tom or Tommy, but instead said Tam or Tammy.
His father was Judge Lewis Linn McArthur, who served as a supreme court judge (1870–1878), as a circuit court judge (1878–1882), and as a Portland lawyer until his death in 1897. His mother's maiden name was Harriet Nesmith. She was one of the organizers of the Oregon Historical Society in 1898 and served on its board of directors from the beginning until 1924. His paternal grandfather was William P. McArthur, a naval lieutenant in command of the first survey of the Pacific Coast for United States Coast Survey during the years 1849 and 1850. His maternal grandfather was James W. Nesmith, a pioneer of 1843, who took an active part in the provisional, territorial and state governments of Oregon. He was United States senator from Oregon from 1861 to 1867, and served on the senate committee on the conduct of the Civil War. He served as a representative from Oregon from 1873 to 1875. Although a Democrat, he cast his vote in 1861 in favor of the Union. Harvey W. Scott, nationally-known editor of the Oregonian, said of Nesmith on the occasion of his death:
Among the notable men of Oregon, James W. Nesmith, since the earliest settlement of the state, has held a leading place. He was a man of intelligence, unusual force of character, large individualism and originality, an excellent friend and citizen, withal, a true type of those representative Americans who laid the foundations of the empire in the West.
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