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Seth Luen Pope was a descendant of early English settlers in Massachusetts. One ancestor, Thomas Pope (1608-1683), settled in 1670 in the area of Dartmouth (now Fairhaven), Mass., and there the family remained until the end of the 19th century. Other ancestors included Seth Pope (1648-1727), his son Lemuel Pope (1696-1771), and Lemuel's son Seth Pope (1719-1802). Seth's son Captain Seth Pope (1803-1886) commanded a number of merchant vessels and sailed throughout the world. His wife was Mary Henwood Pope (1811-1842), a native of East Cowes on the Isle of Wight in England. In 1850 Seth Pope sailed to California from New Bedford, Mass., on his ship Nonpareil. Settling eventually in St. Helens, Oregon, he served as postmaster, Treasurer of Columbia County, ran a general store, and continued in the shipping business until he retired to Portland in the 1870s. His two sons were William Henwood Pope (1839-1899) and Seth Luen Pope (1837-1912).

Seth Luen Pope was born in Fairhaven, Massachusetts in 1837, educated at Woodbury Cottage School, and came to Oregon by sea with his brother in 1854. He worked in his father's store in St. Helens, tried farming, then took up seafaring, serving on the bark Desdemona. After an accident in 1857, he worked at various occupations in St. Helens, then moved to The Dalles, Oregon, in 1862. In 1865 he went to Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho, where he was involved in running various steamboats on the lake. He came back to Oregon in 1870 and settled in Portland, and there he held positions with various firms, including Wells Fargo & Co.; the Masonic Building Association; the Portland Telephone, Telegraph & Light Company; the Portland Water Company; and the Transcontinental Street Railway Company. He was credited with installing the first telephone system in the city. During the year 1887 he visited mining camps in Okanogan and eastern Washington. From about 1874 to 1901 Pope lived in a house at the corner of SW Mill Street and Broadway in Portland -- a house he shared with Sarah Phelps Abrams, widow of his friend William Penn Abrams, a Portland pioneer. In 1901 they moved to a house at the corner of SW 17th Avenue and Taylor Street, where Pope died in 1912. Besides keeping extensive diaries, Pope was also an amateur photographer who documented the growth of Portland and surrounding areas.

Seth Luen Pope's brother, William Henwood Pope, left St. Helens for Olympia, Washington, in 1860. There he worked in the recorder's office and served as clerk and interpreter on the Tulalip Indian reservation. He later held many positions throughout the northwest in places such as Vancouver, Washington, The Dalles, Oregon, Walla Walla, Washington, and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Starting in 1867 he worked for seven years at the First National Bank of Idaho, then moved to San Francisco and went into the real estate business for two years. After visiting Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Colorado, he settled in Portland in 1892 and became Auditor of Multnomah County.