Levi Schmidt Ankeny is Born

Today in Masonic History Levi Schmidt Ankeny is born in 1844.

Levi Schmidt Ankeny was an American politician.

Ankeny was born in Buchanan County near St. Joseph, Missouri on August 1, 1844. Sometime in 1850 his parents took the Oregon Trail to Portland, Oregon. There he attended the local rural schools, then the Kingsley Academy. As a young man he became a pack train merchant in Orofino, Florence and other Idaho gold mining districts. In addition to the mining endeavors, he engaged in several different business ventures, later the cattle business in Southeastern Washington, Lewiston Idaho and the surrounding area.

Shortly after reaching voting age he was elected as the first mayor of Lewiston, Idaho. In 1873 he returned to Portland but five years later 1878 he moved to Walla Walla. At that time it was one of the largest and most prosperous cities in Washington Territory. He engage in banking by opening the first national bank in the Territory. In time he became an officer in several different banks.

In 1886 Ankeny donated 160 acres to the Territory government to build a Territory prison. The Territorial legislature approved the site; the prison was built by 1897. When Washington became a state, it became the Washington State Penitentiary and continues to operate as such.

He was appointed a member of the Buffalo, New York 1901 Pan American Exposition Commission serving as its chairman. The Exposition is tragically best remembered as the location of the assassination of Masonic Brother, President William McKinley on September 9, 1901 at the Temple of Music.

The 1902 Washington State legislature elected him to serve one term as a Republican senator. During the Fifty-eighth and Fifty-ninth Congress he became chair of the Senate Committee on Coast and Insular Survey. His first year in the senate, he was a member of the Committee on Irrigation and the Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation.

The 1908 legislature chose not to re-elect him, so he returned Walla Walla and to the banking industry continuing to do so until has his death March 29, 1921. He was buried with Masonic ceremonies in the Walla Walla Masonic Cemetery.

As a banker, during the "Panic of 1893," it was his policy to encourage his debtors to do everything possible to keep their property, etc. refusing to foreclose on loans unless he was forced to act. On the day of his death on March 29,1921 in his obituary, The Wall Walla Union wrote, "during the hard times of 1893 and during other financial panics, he could by law have gained possession of much of the richest farmland of Walla Walla County by sharp practices, which, however, were foreign to his nature. innumerable times in the past few years he has aided many a farmer and businessman in financial distress and thus kept his community free from the evils of bankruptcy and hardship."

He was a member of Walla Walla Lodge #7 in Walla Walla, Washington. The Washington Grand Lodge records show that he affiliated with the lodge on February 28, 1879, he became its Master in 1882. He had received his degrees in Willamette Lodge No. 2 in Portland in 1866. He was elected Grand Master in 1883, having served the previous year as Senior Grand Warden.

He was part of a Northwest political family. His father-in-law James Willis Nesmith, who at one time was Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Territories of Oregon and Washington, served as a Democratic U. S. Senator [1861-1867] and U. S. Representative [1873-1875] in Congress from Oregon. – R [1903-1909] Walla Walla County.

This article provided by Brother Coe Tug Morgan – Honorary Grand Secretary, Past Grand Historian Grand Lodge F. & A. M. of Washington.