William R. Abercrombie
William R. Abercrombie (August 17, 1857 – November 7, 1943) was a career U.S. Army officer during the late 19th century.
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| Born | August 17, 1857 Fort Ridgely, Minnesota Territory |
| Died | November 7, 1943 (aged 86) Spokane, Washington |
| Occupation | United States Army officer |
Biography
William R. Abercrombie was born at Fort Ridgely on August 17, 1857.[1] Raised in Long Island, New York, he was appointed a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army by President U.S. Grant in 1877 and was assigned to the 2nd Infantry. He proceeded to the Pacific coast to join the Nez Perce War. After the war he served in a number of assignments including the Indian Wars, Abercrombie participated in many expeditions in the Northwest and Alaska.
Abercrombie led the 1898 expedition seeking "an all-American route from coastal Alaska to the Klondike." The next year Abercrombie was responsible for constructing a military road to Eagle on the Yukon River.[2][3]
He died in Spokane on November 7, 1943.[4]
Fort Abercrombie in Kodiak, in the Territory of Alaska, was named in his honor.[5][6]
References
- Durham, Nelson Wayne (1912). History of the City of Spokane and Spokane County, Washington: From Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time. Vol. 2. S. J. Clarke Publishing Company. pp. 100–105. Retrieved October 25, 2021 – via Google Books.
- Charles Caldwell Hawley (2014). A Kennecott Story. The University of Utah Press. pp. 34–35.
- Elizabeth A. Tower (1990). Ghosts of Kennecott, The Story of Stephen Birch. pp. 3–11.
- "Spokane's First Soldier is Dead". The Spokesman-Review. November 8, 1943. p. 1. Retrieved October 25, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
- Spokane and the Spokane Country, Pictorial and Biographical, De Luxe Supplement. The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company. 1912. p. 117.
- "Fort Abercrombie's Historical Significance". dnr.alaska.gov. Archived from the original on March 10, 2009.