Background
Simeon Gannett Reed was born on April 23, 1830 in East Abington, Massachussets, the son of Simeon Gannet and Rachel (Burgess) Reed, and a descendant of William Reade who was in Weymouth, Massachussets, as early as 1635.
Simeon Gannett Reed was born on April 23, 1830 in East Abington, Massachussets, the son of Simeon Gannet and Rachel (Burgess) Reed, and a descendant of William Reade who was in Weymouth, Massachussets, as early as 1635.
Simeon was educated in the public schools and a private academy of his native town.
As a young man he worked in an Abington shoe factory; later he became a grain dealer in Quincy, Massachussets.
In 1852 he moved to California, traveling by way of Panama; and shortly, to Portland, Oregon, at that time a village of a few hundred inhabitants.
Here Reed worked in a general store, soon becoming a partner in the business. In 1858 he invested in three steamers on the Columbia River, thus entering upon an enterprise which was to bring him a fortune. In 1860 he joined with J. C. Ainsworth and Robert Thompson in organizing the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, with a capital of $172, 500.
Two years later the company was reorganized with a capital of $2, 000, 000. At this time mines were being opened in the interior and the natural passage for men and goods was through the gorge of the Columbia. The Navigation Company had the steamers; it now purchased right of way and built portage railways around the rapids at Cascades and the Dalles.
Later it bought a railway from the Columbia to Walla Walla. In seven years it paid dividends of nearly two and three quarters millions and made investments of over two millions. It was sold in 1879 to the Villard Syndicate for five millions. The fortune accumulated through steamboat transportation Reed augmented by successful mining ventures. He developed valuable mines in eastern Oregon and in 1887 was owner of the Bunker Hill and Sullivan, one of the richest mining properties in northern Idaho. He now had the means to gratify his personal tastes.
Though childless, he was especially fond of children and youth, and was interested in their education. In his will he left his whole fortune to his wife with the suggestion that she devote some portion of his estate "to the cultivation, illustration or development of the fine arts of said city of Portland, or to some other suitable purpose, which shall be of permanent value and contribute to the beauty of the city and to the intelligence, prosperity and happiness of its inhabitants". Accordingly, when Amanda Reed died in 1904, she directed in her will that the bulk of her estate should be used to establish and maintain, in memory of her husband, "an institution of learning, having for its object the increase and diffusion of practical knowledge among the citizens of said City of Portland, and for the promotion of literature, science, and art" . Thus Reed College, opened in 1911, came into being as a lasting and significant memorial to Simeon G. Reed.
He made a fortune primarily in the transportation sector in association with William S. Ladd. Possessing a genuine, though uncultivated, liking for music and art, he made an interesting collection of paintings. He was one of the first to raise the standard of live-stock breeding in the Northwest. In Oregon and afterward in California he bought and bred fine horses and took great pleasure and pride in them.
On October 17, 1850, he married Amanda Wood. They had no children.
