Collection is open for research.
Donated to the Whitman College and Northwest Archives prior to August 2004. The accession number is retro-0014.
William Kirkman was born in Bury, England on December 7, 1832 to a Scotch-Irish factory foreman. He immigrated to Boston, Massachusetts in 1852 and moved to California in 1853. Between 1853 and 1862, he lived in Australia, the Sandwich Islands, and British Columbia. In 1862, he returned to California, but soon migrated northeast, as he began supplying cattle for miners in Boise, Idaho and Walla Walla, Washington.
In San Francisco, California on February 2, 1867, he married Isabella Potts, a native of Balla Bay, Ireland who had emigrated to live with her sister. They moved to Idaho City, Idaho to pursue economic ventures in the cattle business. After enduring the difficult winter of 1868-1869 and heavy economic and personal losses, including the death of their son George, they returned briefly to San Francisco.
In 1870, William and Isabella Kirkman moved to Walla Walla, Washington and built a small house on Colville St. The Kirkman House preserved today as a museum was built around 1873. William Kirkman and John Dooley partnered as cattle ranchers and enjoyed great economic success. In 1890, Kirkman bought out Dooley's interest in the business and founded the Walla Walla Dressed Meat Company. He also became involved in wheat farming, operating two farms near Dry Creek.
William and Isabella Kirkman were active in the Walla Walla community. William Kirkman served on the City Council, the School Board, and the Whitman College Board of Trustees. He was also a founding member and president of the Walla Walla Club and served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1892. The Kirkmans had four children who survived into adulthood: William H. Kirkman, Fanny A. Kirkman, (Mrs. Allen G. Reynolds), Myrtle B. Kirkman, and Leslie G. Kirkman.
William Kirkman died in Stevens Point, WI in 1893. Isabella Kirkman died near Belfast, Ireland in 1931.
The collection contains a wide variety of documents. The correspondence file contains William Kirkman's letters to his family written in the 1850s and 1860s. Isabella Kirkman's 1867 scrapbook contains clippings of poems and newspaper articles. Invitations received by the family in the 1870s and 1880s provide evidence of their social engagements. A travel journal kept by William Kirkman describes his family's 1892 European tour. Genealogists will be especially interested in the clipping file, the family record in the family Bible, and an unpublished booklet entitled "The Kirkmans of Walla Walla" by Patrick Peebles. A small collection of financial records, land records, an 1896 Masonic Cemetery Deed, and materials from the 1892 Republican National Convention complete the collection.