A fact from Socrates Hotchkiss Tryon Sr. appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 23 June 2009 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
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Wow! The article doubled in size overnight. Meanwhile late last evening I found another account in "A Profile of the Tryon Creek Watershed", from the "Tryon Creek Watershed Atlas" published by Metro and re-published by Portland State University here. It claims that Tryon left wife and son in Iowa while he traveled to Lahaina, Hawaii, to set up a medical practice, then came to Oregon by boat in late 1849. He settled the land claim near the southern end of what became Tryon Creek canyon and then sent for Frances and 3-year-old Socrates, Jr., who joined him in 1851. In 1852, the Tryons had a second child, Sallie. Tryon farmed, built a sawmill, and in 1855 built a house near what is now called Stampher Road, near the creek. He died that year of "sciatic rheumatism", leaving the land to Frances. In 1869, Frances gave the land to Socrates, Jr., Sallie, and Sallie's husband, A.A. Cleveland. In 1874, they sold the claim to the iron company. California isn't mentioned in this account. Since Tryon was travelling by ship, maybe he just stopped in a California port on the way to Hawaii. Anyway, I'm not sure what to make of the minor discrepancies in the accounts I have seen. I hadn't heard of Sallie when I took the grave photo, and I don't know if she's at Lone Fir or not. I might go back over there and take another look. (I might rotate the image yet one more degree clockwise to try to make that stone marker look vertical. I'm not sure it's actually vertical in real life.) I'll try to work some of this latest account into the narrative without contradicting what's already there. Finetooth (talk) 17:06, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Welcome to the "Old Dead Guy World" where the history is often a bit fuzzy. Dates/places tend to get mixed up a bit, or sometimes just plain made up. In my experience with discrepancies, I tend to go with what makes the most sense, or you can qualify it with "some accounts..." to make mention that the info is a bit uncertain. FYI, I also nomed it for DYK. Aboutmovies (talk) 19:37, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'll give it a shot. I'm glad to hear about the DYK nomination. I thought of trying for one but thought that my earlier version was too short to qualify. By the way, did you nominate Elk Creek (Rogue River) for its DYK? I thought about trying that one too but thought it would not qualify for lack of an image. I probably need to read the rules again. Finetooth (talk) 20:22, 16 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
DYKs don't need an image. One problem with what you added. He had a daughter in 1862, but he died in 1855. Nowadays we can do that, and I know he was a doctor, but I see a problem. Was it maybe a daughter in law, i.e. junior married in 1862? Aboutmovies (talk) 06:02, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think I figured out some of the stuff. The 1862 was just a typo. As to Hawaii, see the source I just added (Rootsweb) towards the bottom where it discusses his foray to the islands. Aboutmovies (talk) 06:22, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for catching the typo. Editors need editors. I looked through the Rootsweb material, and it differs yet again in terms of the timeline, the number of Tryon children, and other details in ways that make my head spin. Rootsweb, though good for finding clues, is almost certainly not a reliable source, but my sources are shaky on Tryon family history as well. What we could use here is a historian Wikipedian who visits the catacombs and combs through the underlying documents. Finetooth (talk) 17:12, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ya, Rootsweb is not the best source, but for things like birth/death date it seems reliable enough. After all the "author" has done the research and much of the info in that regards matches what I've read elsewhere. With number of children, the difference could be what people count as children. In Old Dead Guy World I have often seen discrepancies in that regard, where infants who died are often not counted in the old sources, but newer sources that look back on the person count them. That is to say, their obit will say they had four kids, while the author of a biography 60 years later says it is 6 kids as the obit folks (usually the family) only counted those to make it out of infancy. Aboutmovies (talk) 00:15, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Don't know if you saw, but at the bottom of the rootsweb page are links to other parts of the thread, which includes some letters from Hawaii that might help with figuring out the timeline. There is also a reprint of a newspaper article by Fred Lockley, which is interesting, but from my experience they are not that reliable (as can be seen in how old Socrates was when he died). Aboutmovies (talk) 06:47, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I snagged a used copy of Classic Houses of Portland, Oregon: 1850–1950 at Powell's yesterday. It has virtually no biographical details about Tryon but some useful information about his house. The book has a nice b&w photo of the house that, alas, is unlikely to be in the public domain. This book should come in handy as a source for info about the houses of other Old Dead Guys. Finetooth (talk) 22:04, 19 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Although not public domain, since the house no longer exists, it could be uploaded on Wikipedia under fair use. Aboutmovies (talk) 06:23, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good idea I hadn't thought of. I'll see what I can do. Finetooth (talk) 17:05, 20 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Done. This was my first-ever use of a fair-use image. I think the rationale is OK, and my scanned copy is not as clear as the original. But should it be even worse to qualify as low-res? I'm not sure what low-res means in terms of dots per inch. I used 200 dpi. Should it be 100 or 72 or something else? Finetooth (talk) 00:52, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It looks "crappy" enough for me. I don't think anyone would try to re-use it commercially, which I think is the reason for low resolution. Aboutmovies (talk) 07:36, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
