An illustrated history of Skagit and Snohomish Counties. 1906. Open Library 6973987M URL https://archive.org/details/illustratedhisto00inte| lccn = 06030900 | oclc = 11299996 |publisher = Interstate Publishing Company | publication-place = [Chicago] | author = Inter-state Publishing Company (Chicago, Ill.)
Proprietor of the Fairview farm near Padilla, is one of the pioneers of Skagit county who has done as much as any other man to develop the resources of his section of the state. He has been active in the life of the community since 1872, when he was one of the men who inaugurated the plan of reclaiming lands from the tide water. Mr. Sisson was born in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, in 1849, the son of Arnold C. Sisson, a native of Connecticut, and later a merchant and farmer of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Isabel (Green) Sisson, mother of our subject, was born in the Keystone state and is now living at Factoryville. She is the mother of three children. Edgar A. Sisson received his early education in the common schools, prepared for college in the academic department of the University of Lewisburg, now Bucknell University, and took a course in Cornell University at Ithaca, New York. For two years following his college course Mr, Sisson engaged in market gardening in company with his father. He then came West and in the fall of 1872 joined forces with A. G. Tillinghast and R. E. Whitney in the work of reclaiming and improving tide lands, diking in some five hundred acres, which were put under cultivation. But they did not realize crops of any great consequence until 1876, and in that year the three men dissolved partnership. Of this tract Mr. Sisson pre-empted forty-nine acres, Mr. Whitney one hundred and seventy-four and Mr. Tillinghast one hundred and seventy-one, the balance of the five hundred acres being purchased.
In 1876 Mr, Sisson married Miss Ida Leamer, daughter of David Leamer, a Pennsylvania farmer of Holland Dutch descent, who died in Jowa, where he had farmed a number of years previous to his death. Mrs. Eliza J. (Campbell) Leamer, mother of Mrs. Sisson, was born in Ireland of Scotch parentage in 1818 and died in the Sisson home in 1901 full of good works and beloved by all. Mrs. Leamer was a woman of exceptional culture and tenderest sympathies, and in the early days of the settlements in Skagit county performed many deeds of kindness and self-sacrifice for the less fortunate. She was ever ready to lend her assistance to the needy and often took her boat and crossed the waters to give succor to the distressed. Mrs. Sisson was born in Davenport, Iowa, in 1857, and obtained her early education in that state. On coming to the coast country she attended the Seattle high school and took a course in a convent at Salem, Oregon. She commenced teaching school when fifteen years of age, her first school being at Pleasant Ridge, in Skagit county. Later she became the first woman teacher in the La Conner schools. She also taught at the town of Stanwood, Snohomish county. Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Sisson: Mrs. Pearl Wilson, who is living on the Samish flats, near Edison; Mrs. Nettie E. Wright. living in La Conner, and Grant C. Sisson, Mr. Sisson is a member of the Baptist church and in politics is an active Republican. The land at Fairview farm consists of one hundred and sixty acres, all of which is in a state of high cultivation. Mr. Sisson is not only one of the successful men of Skagit county, but also one of the most popular and most public-spirited of citizens. He and the members of his household have played a very important part in the work of developing the wooded and watered wilderness of Skagit county into a place of smiling farms and happy homes, which stand today as monuments to the courage, industry and thrift of the sturdy pioneers.