Daniel Starritt Gamble - Johnny Appleseed was a Gamble?

Daniel Starritt Gamble was my 1st cousin, 3 times removed.  He was the son of my grandmother, Julia Gamble's uncle Robert.


Exerpt from an article in the Brewster Washington News - 1908 

Daniel Starritt Gamble and grandson, Dan
Gebbers

Daniel Starritt Gamble was born in Castlereagh, Colchester County, Nova Scotia, on February 16, 1867, the son of Robert and Deborah (Reid) Gamble, natives of the same place, and where they still live, aged seventy-four and sixty-eight respectively. They were the parents of seven children: Mrs. Malinda Muhe, deceased; Daniel S., our subject; John, deceased; Martha, deceased: Joseph; Charles; Chesley R. All of those living are in Nova Scotia, except our subject. From the common schools of his home place Mr. Gamble received his education and learned the trade of carpenter and builder during his youth. In 1885 he came to Lansing, Michigan, whence one year later he went to Oakland, California, and labored in the bridge construction department of the Southern Pacific for five years. In the spring of 1890 he accepted a position with the San Francisco Bridge Company, and later came to this state. Here he did contracting and building. He put in the Ferry at Virginia City and Chelan Falls and operated the Virginia City ferry, just below Bridgeport. He also bought and sold horses. In 1898, as stated above, Mr. Gamble entered the hotel business and has made good success of it since that time.

On February 18, 1896, Mr. Gamble married Miss Cora May, daughter of Stephen C. and Ursula Munson, natives of Maine and pioneers to California in the early fifties. In 1885 the family came to Okanogan county, where Mr. and Mrs. Munson both died. Mrs. Gamble was born in California on October 7, 1877, and has two sisters, Mrs. Joseph Hilton and Mrs. Annie L. Walton. Two children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Gamble, Martha U., aged four and Cyril H., aged two. Mr. Gamble was one of the first to settle where Brewster now is and has ever been active in building up the town and for the general welfare of the county.

In 1885 Dan Gamble arrived with his backpack to the Harts Pass area in Washington State having walked from Nova Scotia for the beginning of the upper Methow gold rush. Later, he chased the silver boom at Ruby in the Okanogan valley. He first established a saw mill in the mouth of Cactus Canyon near Brewster in 1894 where he caught and milled drift wood out of the river. He followed up this venture with the establishment of the Gamble Hotel and steamboat landing on the banks of the Columbia River.

Dan Gamble's Hotel in Brewster, Washington

Daniel Starritt Gamble, who is proprieter of the Hotel Gamble at Brewster, is one of the leading business men of the Okanogan county and is well known in this portion of Washington. He is proprietor of one of the finest hotels in this part of the state and has labored steadily and with telling results in building up Brewster and the surrounding country. In 1898 Mr. Gamble was engaged in the hotel business at Brewster, beginning business in a small house, which was enlarged from time to time until he now has an elegant three story structure eighty feet deep, with a frontage of seventy-six feet. It has forty sleeping apartments, in addition to a spacious dining room, sample room, office, kitchen and so forth. The rooms are large and light and the building is handled in a first-class manner. Mr. Gamble has supplied his hotel with a private water system that gives an abundance of water to all parts of the house. As a host he is affable and genial and a favorite with the traveling public.

Dan Gebbers, grandson of Daniel Gamble
was the model for the family run
apple business advertising

He planted his first apple orchard in Brewster in 1910. He incorporated Gamble Lumber Company and a second saw mill located on Paradise Hill in 1910, with a large part of the production being wooden apple boxes. He built his first apple packing shed in Brewster in 1918.

Daniel died in Brewster in 1939 at the age of 72.