The kidnappers drove George to a secluded woods and put him in a freshly dug pit where he was held in handcuffs. The Weyerhaeuser Company (/ w r h a z r /) is an American timberland company which owns nearly 12,400,000 acres (19,400 sq mi; 50,000 km 2) of timberlands in the U.S., and manages an additional 14,000,000 acres (22,000 sq mi; 57,000 km 2) of timberlands under long-term licenses in Canada. If not, see our friends at Ancestry DNA. Several of the notes, mostly $10 bills, had been passed at a Kresss and a Woolworths 10-cent store by a young woman purchasing food and sundries. Skip Ancestry main menu Main Menu. Law enforcement authorities agreed to refrain from any interference until George was released. The German immigrant bought a bankrupt mill with his brother-in-law. 25 Feb/23. Dreher gave Bonifas the impression he was a police officer and, for $5, persuaded the farmer to relinquish custody of the boy. Meanwhile, at about 9 p.m. June 8, 1935, Dainard stopped by Margarets grandfathers house in Ogden, Utah, to pick up a suitcase he had left there and learned that the Waleys had been arrested in Salt Lake City. into Oklahoma, about 120 miles west. When he had the money ready, he was to place an ad in the personals column of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reading, "We are ready. Waley claimed that Margaret had no knowledge of the kidnapping until after it occurred, but later she helped them collect the ransom. He would later downplay the impacts of the abduction and frenzied aftermath. Marshals took him immediately to the McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary to start serving his sentence. In North Carolina the company is developing residential parks, emphasizing such attractions as deep-sea fishing and trails for horseback riding. George Weyerhaeuser these days is an engaging, friendly individual who looks over the Weyerhaeuser woods with the air of a man who wishes that trees grew faster than they do. He pleaded guilty to helping Dainard launder ransom money and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. In 1966, at age 39, he became chief executive officer and president. Margaret drove his car to the Fir Apartments. He was 95. George Weyerhaeuser Sr., the fourth-generation timber family scion who ran one of Americas largest forestry firms and was briefly one of Americas most famous kidnapping victims, died Saturday, June 11, his family confirmed Monday. They disabled it and established surveillance. That involved constant planting and cultivating, the thinning of dense stands as the trees grew and the cutting of only small tracts at a time. And when the change is for all time, and involves a unique physical asset, I think we have to weigh it very, very carefully to see what price we are going to have to pay for economic progress. Harmon Waley (left) and William Dainard. There is, however, another question. Research genealogy for Henry George Weyerhaeuser, as well as other members of the Weyerhaeuser family, on Ancestry. Some are major developments, altering the country for all time; once they are made, it can never be brought back to the way it was before. He died in Great Falls, Montana, on September 18, 1992, at age 90. At 9, George Weyerhaeuser told of kidnapping in court. Copyright FameChain 2023, All rights reserved. At the memorial event for the late George Weyerhaeuser Jr., which filled the Museum of Glass to capacity Friday night, the Weyerhaeuser family announced the gift of $1 million, plus up to $500,000 in matching funds, to start the George Weyerhaeuser Jr. Memorial Endowment Fund for the museum that the Tacoma civic and business leader helped to found. Dreher pounded on the basement garage door, which was eventually opened by a family friend, Henry Marfield Bolcom, and George unceremoniously disappeared into the house. After deliberating for only five hours and 44 minutes, a jury of 10 men and two women found Margaret Waley guilty of both charges. Frederick's great-great-grandson Bill Driscoll made an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 2012, bankrolled with a $500,000 nest egg from the family's timber fortune. Although he admitted to his participation in the kidnapping, he refused to sign a confession, but told the FBI where he had cached $14,000 in $100 bills in Utah. The Waleys also told the FBI they had buried their share of the ransom money and showed them exactly where it was located. On July 17, Cushman sentenced her to 20 years in prison for the kidnapping and 20 years for conspiracy, to be served concurrently at the Federal Detention Farm, Milan, Michigan. Answer. In his teen years, George Weyerhaeuser spent summers working for his family company, often as a manual laborer in the woods and mills. There was no ransom money involved" (The Seattle Times). The following day, by chance, Dainard was spotted in Butte by a police officer who had arrested him for bank robbery in 1927, but he had no idea that Dainard had been fingered as one of the Weyerhaeuser kidnappers. The company's policy on recreation, embodied in a weighty document called Policy No. It was quickly identified as one of the ransom notes and the officers arrested the young woman who passed the bill. Highlights include its tree staircase, mosaic bathroom floor, and handcrafted . A note at the base of a stake directed him to a second stake on a road by Angle Lake, a deep, mile-long trout lake in the woods. "Why did I do it?" Percy Minnie.. George Hunt Walker Weyerhaeuser Sr. (July 8, 1926-June 11, 2022), was the Chairman of the Weyerhaeuser company. He and Waley returned to the pit. Waley getting 30 years. The Weyerhaeuser mansion was surrounded by syndicated and local newspaper reporters, each hoping for a scoop. He can adjust himself to conditions in a way no adult could. They were merely checking his route when he happened to walk up to the car. Musing on a stump, he ponders new ways in which his vast forests can contribute to conservation and recreation as well as timber profits, 2023 ABG-SI LLC. Hurry, relieve anguished mother. Should you have information that conflicts with anything shown please make us aware by email. Im through with men forever. The men took advantage of the situation, snatching the boy off the street. He was then told that he would be contacted with new instructions and it would be the last chance to save his son. All Rights Reserved. There he was identified as ex-convict Harmon Metz Waley, age 24, and his wife as Margaret Eldora Thulin, 19, from Salt Lake City, Utah. His kidnapping did not darken his notions of human behavior. Date of birth Wednesday 16 Jan 1895 Birth place Rock Island, Illinois, USA Date of death: Sep 1978 Was president of the Weyerhaueser Timber Company Frederick Weyerhaeuser Siblings Married 4 children together 1923 Vivian Weyerhaeuser Frederick Weyerhaeuser Children Lynn Day Then he hustled George into his taxi and, taking back roads to avoid police cars and the press, headed toward Tacoma. But as the head of the most influential timber company of them all, he weighs his words on such matters. george weyerhaeuser net worth george weyerhaeuser net worth (No Ratings Yet) . A great many steelhead fishermen who take some 350,000 fish each year from Washington rivers fish in Weyerhaeuser woods. That lesson certainly applied to his own life. The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens eruption flattened 68,000 acres of timber land and forced a massive salvage operation. Edward Fliss, who had an extensive criminal record, including kidnapping and robbery, served almost all 10 years of his sentence. Please enable JavaScript in your browser's settings to use this part of Geni. Mahan occasionally yanked him around; Waley occasionally rescued him. Or perhaps never. George Weyerhaeuser Sr., the fourth-generation heir of his family's timber company, died June 11 at the age of 95, leaving a lasting legacy on the region and industry. The car, a 1935 Ford sedan, was registered to Bert E. Cole, who was living at the Ventura Hotel, directly across Mission Street from the Federal Building. At the FBIs Salt Lake City Field Office, agents found another ransom bill in her purse. At about 7:45 a.m., the taxi arrived at the Weyerhaeuser residence and drove into the garage. Fliss was arraigned on Saturday, November 14, 1936, before Judge Cushman. After walking about 100 yards, Weyerhaeuser heard noises and saw someone run from the underbrush, enter his car, which was a black 1933 Pontiac sedan, and drive away. The phone rang; he was directed to go home and send a different emissary. It passed through Tacoma and disappeared into back roads before George was missed at home. His captors mailed a note to the Weyerhaeuser family, demanding $200,000 for the boy's safe return. Welcome to the Weyerhaeuser Family page at Surname Finder, a service of Genealogy Today. They became friends and in 1899, when Hill wanted to sell some of the land awarded to the Northern Pacific as a land grant, he offered it to Weyerhaeuser for $7 an acre. Husband of Wendy Weyerhaeuser Shortly thereafter, Dainard was transferred to the Federal Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, where he was determined to be insane. So will all other responsible timber companies.". When George Weyerhaeuser looks over the company's lands from his vantage point he sees an enormously varied terrain in all parts of the U.S. but alike in one respect: its increased use for recreation and some tangible opportunities that presents. Weyerhaeuser, who was succeeded by Jack Creighton in 1991, is believed to be the last family member to serve in company management. In the past, roads in the timber country ran through miles of bleached stumps and bony snags as devastated as the battlefields of World War I. Then she added: "I did not intend to let them hang Harmon or myself" (The Seattle Times). Their forests were as little-known as they were. ", To get back to the original question: What does George Weyerhaeuser think of conservation? By Bess Lovejoy October 1, 2014 Published in the October 2014 issue of Seattle Met. We just forced the man to ride with us for a couple of hours and when they found out who he was, we let him go. It was his obituary, which detailed the familys timber wealth, that reportedly inspired the kidnapping plot by William Dainard, 33, Harmon Metz Waley, 23, and Margaret Eldora Thulin, 19. The sons of the family went to Yale, trained in the small family-owned lumber companies, supported charities, endowed schools of forestry and lived quietly, even by the standards of St. Paul, which were pretty quiet. He became. Harmon Metz Waley (1910-1984) was paroled from the McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary on June 3, 1963, after serving 28 years of his 45-year sentence. He retired from the corporation in 1999. In appreciation for helping his son, George, Mr. J. P. Weyerhaeuser Jr. gave Louis Bonifas (1898-1992) lifetime employment in the Snoqualmie Falls Lumber Mill, owned by the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, and a monetary reward of sufficient size to purchase several acres of land and build a new house in the Snoqualmie area. Once the money had been gathered, Georges father was instructed to run a personal ad in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that read, We are ready. Not so long ago the answer was easy. The Weyerhaeusers never made sensational news. Family Tree Genealogy Research WikiTree Tools Contact Here is a collection of tools for genealogists with an interest in George's family history. He had been in and out of jails and reformatories from the time he was 17 years old. On Monday morning, June 10, 1935, FBI agents recovered a gunny sack containing $90,700 wrapped in black oilcloth, buried near an anthill in Emigration Canyon, about six miles east of Salt Lake City. For mines to work, Russian mine-countermeasures have to not work. It was an informal beginning of an important historical development. Investigative efforts had been curtailed during Georges captivity in an attempt to insure his safe return. I had blankets and it was warm back there.". At the hotel Philip Weyerhaeuser got the call, directing him to a point on the highway midway between Seattle and Tacoma. At about 6:25 p.m., a postal carrier arrived at the Weyerhaeuser residence with a special delivery letter addressed "To Whom it May Concern," demanding a ransom of $200,000 in small, unmarked bills. Birthplace: Seattle, Wash. Someone in the area shot at something and alarmed them. The Lend-Lease Program to assist the British prior to U.S. entry into World War II found Weyerhaeuser transport ships utilized to carry lend-lease material to the British in Egypt. A series of notes in tin cans, marked by white flags, eventually instructed him to park the car, place the bag containing the $200,000 ransom on the front seat, leave the vehicle with the engine running, the dome light on and the drivers door open, and then walk down the road toward the highway. They moved George into deeper woods to a second pit they had dug for such emergencies. It didnt affect me personally as much as anyone looking back on it might think.. At the request of the FBI, the Salt Lake City Police Department stationed undercover officers in the cashiers cage of every downtown variety store to screen serial numbers. On Wednesday, June 12, 1935, the Waleys were flown, via United Airlines charter, from Salt Lake City to Tacoma where complaints had been filed in U.S. District Court, charging them with kidnapping. "No, I don't mind talking about it," he said to me "I don't think it bothered me unduly." They Dont Work Against The Latest American Mines. George went around to the back and knocked on the kitchen door. Presently he came to a shingled house on a lonely knoll. The letter instructed Weyerhaeuser to drive to S Renton Avenue and 62nd Avenue S in the Rainier Valley with the money and look for a stake with a white cloth attached on the right side of the road. The note said the family would be notified regarding the ransoms delivery and was signed "Egoist. On Saturday, June 8, 1935, Detective William M. Rogers and Patrolman L. B. Gifford were checking serial numbers at Woolworths when a clerk arrived at the cashiers cage with a $5 bill for a 20-cent purchase. The girl was pretty, placid, blonde Margaret Thulin, who, in the course of her wanderings, met and married Harmon Waley, a tall, handsome, 24-year-old Hoquiam, Wash. boy. At 11:45 on Friday morning. They vanished, and for a long time it looked as if they never would be found. And there are still a few million acres whose hidden attractions have scarcely been glimpsed. George Hunt Walker Weyerhaeuser was born July 8, 1926, in Seattle, to Helen (Walker) Weyerhaeuser and John Philip Weyerhaeuser Jr., grandson of company co-founder Frederick Weyerhaeuser. Margaret mailed a letter to George's father instructing him to register at the Ambassador Hotel in Seattle under the name of John Paul Jones and wait there for a telephone call. Margaret testified that she had tried to plead guilty to the Federal kidnapping charges because maximum penalty was life imprisonment and FBI agents had warned her that death was the automatic penalty for kidnapping in Washington state. In April 1935, Waley chanced upon Dainard in Salt Lake City and they decided to go to Spokane. He doubted it. Birthdate: September 13, 1926. he asked, looking annoyed. The company also owns more than 600,000 acres of pine in scattered stands that run 200-odd miles south from tidewater Virginia to the Southern marshes that have never been much visited since Blackbeard the Pirate lived there. SPORTS ILLUSTRATED is a registered trademark of ABG-SI LLC. The company also owns mountains, like 4,018-foot Jay Peak in Vermont, which it is now developing as a ski resort. George Weyerhaeuser these days is an engaging, friendly individual who looks over the Weyerhaeuser woods with the air of a man who wishes that trees grew faster than they do. The deal was the largest private land transaction in American history to that time, according to the company. He frowned at any mention of itall he would say was, "I tried a little boxing in the Navy." "Our approach to outdoor recreation is going to be positive," he said, "not a negative reaction to increased population pressure. When George emerged onto Borough Road, he encountered two men sitting in a green 1927 Buick sedan. Russias War On Ukraine: Daily News And Information From Ukraine, The Real Players Of Formula One: Drive To Survive Season 5, Scott Adams Undoing: A Timeline Of The Dilbert Cartoonists Fall From Grace. 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