In 1890, with money from an eastern syndicate headed by John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil Company, Henry Hewitt, who was my grandfather's uncle, lay out and built the City of Everett, Washington.
In Mill Town, Norman H. Clark wrote: "Almost overnight, a city of 6,000 people with hotels, factories, mines, a shipyard, nail factory, paper mill, smelter and churches and schools, was born."
With completion of the Everett paper mill in the early 1890s, Rockefeller asked his friend A. G. Paine, my wife Wendy's great-great grandfather who was an eastern paper-mill owner and an investor in Rockefeller's syndicate, if he knew someone who could operate the Everett mill. Herein lies our bizarre family connection that spanned the continent and a portion of two centuries. Paine recommended for the job his nephew Alvah Jordan, whom Rockefeller then hired. When Rockefeller decided in 1896 to divest his Everett holdings, Jordan purchased the mill with a loan from Paine.
In Washington: West of the Cascades, Herbert Hunt wrote: "Alvah H. B. Jordan, President of the Everett Pulp & Paper Company, a director of the First National Bank of Everett, President of the Everett Ice Company and President of the Jordan Investment Company, belongs to that class of men whose powers of initiative and organization constitute a contributing element to the substantial development and improvement of the northwest."