"Portrait and Biographical Record of Portland and Vicinity, Oregon." Authors: "a
compilation of this work....by a number of writers".  Chapman Publishing Co;
Chicago, 1903. p. 614.
 
GEORGE W. FORCE

     The name of George W. Force has been associated with a number of important
western enterprises, chief among which is that of pork packing, conducted in
East Portland and Vancouver. He is now living on his farm on the south side of
Columbia river opposite Vancouver, Wash., where he was born and raised. This
honored and very enterprising member of the community of Multnomah county is a
native son of this section of Oregon and was born May 29, 1849, a son of George
W. and Susan (Wolfe) Force, natives respectively of New Jersey and Pennsylvania,
and the latter of whom died on the 4th of March, 1868, at the age of thirty-nine
years.
     George W. Force was a man of leading characteristics, and materially
impressed his general worth upon all people and things with which he had to do.
A shoemaker by trade, he followed his calling in several parts of the middle
west and in connection therewith carried on general farming and stock-raising.
That he was farsighted and ambitious is proved by the fact that as early as
1845, before the general emigration westward, he joined a large train of others
equally desirous of broader opportunities, and braved the six months' trip
across the plains.  Landing at The Dalles, he engaged in boating emigrants down
the river to Portland for a couple of years, from 1847 to 1848, and eventually
became master of a line of boats called the Captain Force Hudson Bay Boat
Company. After going out of the transportation business he took up a donation
claim of six hundred and twenty acres on Columbia slough or river, across
from Vancouver. Here he made his home for a couple of years, and then went to
California and interested himself in mining for fourteen months near
Placerville.  Returning to his farm he rounded out his life thereon, attending
to an extensive stock business. Before his death, in September, 1898, at the age
of seventy, he had increased his farm to seven hundred and twenty acres.
Three sons and four daughters were born into his family: George W.; James W.,
living on the old place; Theodore N., of Colton, Ore.; Eva Jane Simmons, of St.
Johns Peninsula; Mrs. Lottie Scotten, of Washington; Delia Scotten, of
Clark county, Wash.; and Hannah Selbey, of Mulino, Ore.
     As a boy George W. Force worked on the paternal farm on the Columbia river,
and at the age of eighteen assumed the entire management thereof. When
twenty-eight years old, September 18, 1876, he was married to Annie
Fulkerson, and about that time he purchased two hundred and thirty-seven and a
half acres adjoining the paternal possession, and engaged in an independent
stock business. After his long experience under his father's instruction he was
bound to make a success of his own business, and lived on his farm for eight
years. Next he removed to Portland and engaged in the milk business, as the firm
known as the railroad milk depot. First street, for a couple of years. This did
not prove as profitable as he had anticipated, and he disposed of his milk
interests, and returned to the farm and stock business for a couple of years.
Returning to Portland, he became interested in pork packing in a small way, and
gradually increased his business until he became prominent in his line under the
firm name of Burkhard & Force. At the end of two years he bought out his
partner, and after conducting the pork packing three years by himself sold out,
and undertook a similar occupation in Vancouver, Wash. where he purchased three
lots and built his own buildings thereon. Two years later he retired to his
farm, owing to impaired health, due to confinement. At this writing he is
engaged with his brother, James W., in the dairy and stock business. James W.,
T. N. and George W. own the old donation claim, formerly their boyhood home.
     Mrs. Force is a native of Clarke county, Wash. Peter Fulkerson, her father,
was born in Missouri, March 1, 1822, and died about 1879. He was a painter by
trade, and crossed the plains to Oregon in an early day, taking up a homestead
in Clarke county. His wife, Minerva (Fitzgerald) Fulkerson, was born in
Arkansas, and died March 15, 1899, at the age of sixty-one years.  Of the two
sons and two daughters born to Mr. and Mrs. Force, Maggie and Frank are
deceased; and Fred and Kate are living with her parents.  Fraternally Mr. Force
is connected with the Masons of Vancouver, Wash.


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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in October 2005 by Diana Smith.  Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.