Washington
Image by Conspiracy.of.Cartographers
O.H. Freeman probably had an actual name, but he seemed to go only by "O.H." There are some mentions of him in the social pages of various local papers. In 1912, he bought real estate near Leavenworth. In 1915, he and his wife "returned from a trip into the Bridge creek country."
In 1916, on a trip to Tacoma, this appeared in the Daily Ledger:
"Motorist has narrow escape from plunge to street below. When he drove his machine into the railing that guards the little park on 17th street at Broadway, O.H. Freeman had a narrow escape from serious injury. The railing, altho completely wrecked, stopped the machine from dropping to Commerce street below."
In June of that same year, the Coulee City Dispatch reported that "Mr. and Mrs. O.H. Freeman are now in charge of the Mold store, recently purchased from M. McLean."
McLean owned a parcel of land diagonal from the Freemans, as well as a ranch just north of their property. After the sail, Freeman owned essentially all of the town of Mold.
Mold was a small town very near to Coulee City. All that is left now is one old and abandoned house as well as the cemetery, which sits a mile east of the old townsite.
When O.H. bought the store from McLean, he was 54 years old. In June of 1919, three years after taking over, the Spokesman-Review out of Spokane ran this article:
"Mold Storekeeper Dies in Chair
"Coulee City, Wash., June 13 – O.H. Freeman, storekeeper at Mold, died while seated in his chair and reading a newspaper. A neighbor had been in his store and conversed with him while Mrs. Freeman was at the chautauqua at Coulee City. She came home about 11 o’clock and found Mr. Freeman apparently reading, but got not response when addressing him. Mr. Freeman was not known to have been ailing. The body is at the Coulee City undertaking rooms awaiting word from a sister, when the body will be sent east for burial."
It seems the sister never got back to them as the body was never sent east. It is instead buried in the Mold Cemetery, a mile away from where he died. The stone, though fallen, is ornate and quite beautifully carved.
Mrs. Freeman is not buried here and it’s not known where she ended up. The archive of Coulee City newspapers is missing the year 1919 (along with a bunch of others), and more than likely much additional information is there.
But for now, this is probably more than has been written about O.H. Freeman in over a century.
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‘Sent East’
Camera: Chamonix 45F-2
Lens: Schneider-Kreuznach Super-Angulon 8/90mm
Film: Foma Retropan 320
Exposure: f/8; 1/125sec
Process: Foma Retro Special; 4.5min
Washington
May 2023
