A spirit of enterprise seems a part of the very atmosphere of the west. There is continually opportunity which is a call to action and a spur to ambition. The constant growth of the district offers splendid chances for business development and success is being continually won by the men of sagacity and industry. To this class belongs John G. Rumsey, who is now the president and manager of the Stock Growers' Mercantile Company of Rock Springs.
    He was born January 29, 1856, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a son of the late James M. Rumsey, who was a native of New Jersey and was of English descent, the family, however, having been founded in America at an early period by James Rumsey, the inventor of the first steamboat in association with George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. The trial of this boat was made on the Potomac, after experiments on a pond on his farm in Virginia. He came to America prior to the Revolutionary war and his descendants were among those who participated in the struggle for independence, one of the family serving as a colonel in the immediate command of Washington, and a letter written to this colonel by General Washington is now in possesion of his descendant, John G. Rumsey of this review. James M. Rumsey became a successful dry goods merchant of Portsmouth, Ohio, removing from Pennsylvania to the Buckeye state prior to the Civil war. The business was conducted under the firm name of James M. Rumsey & Company and at one time was the largest wholesale dry goods enterprise in the state. At the time of the outbreak of hostilities between the north and the south James M. Rumsey put aside all other considerations and went to the front, serving for ninety days. Following his return he continued a factor in the commercial interests of Portsmouth and there developed a business of large and gratifying proportions. He carried forward to successful completion whatever he undertook and in his vocabulary there was no such word as fail. His interests and activities contributed to the material progress of the community in which he lived. In 1897 he removed to the west, taking up his abode in Denver, Colorado, where he lived retired, enjoying the fruits of a well spent life until called to the home beyond. He was born July 29, 1829, and had reached the age of seventy-four years when called to his final rest in Denver in 1903. In early manhood he had wedded Harriett A. Gaffy, who was born in New York city, November 18, 1832, and belonged to one of the old families of the Empire state, her father being Captain John S. Gaffy, who through three administrations was connected with the United States custom house in New York. Prior to that time he was a captain on the Hudson river on one of the boats of the Stevens Steamship Line, which also owned a number of ocean-going vessels. The Gaffys were of Irish descent and in the maternal line the ancestry was Scotch. Mrs. Rumsey is still living and makes her home at Rock Springs. By her marriage she became the mother of seven children, four of whom survive, namely: John G.; Eliza W., a resident of Rock Springs; James M., who is a banker of Rawlins and is also a well known stock man of Wyoming: and William T., who is yet living in Rock Springs.
    John G. Rumsey was quite young when his parents removed from Philadelphia to Ohio, so that his education was acquired in the public schools of Portsmouth and later he entered Princeton College, in which he pursued his course to the junior year. At the age of eighteen he started out to provide for his own support and has since been dependent entirely upon his own resources, his progress being the result of unfaltering industry and laudable ambition on his part. He served an apprenticeship in the mammoth mercantile establishment of A. T. Stewart & Company of New York city, the predecessors of the establishment of John Wanamaker. That store at the time was the largest in the world, having over four thousand employes. There Mr. Rumsey remained for four years and later he entered the employ of the Markley-Ailing Company of Chicago, wholesale hardware dealers, with whom he continued for three and a half years. He was afterward general manager for United States Senator George L. Shoup of Idaho, being associated with him in general merchandise interests at Bonanza. Idaho, for a period of three years.
    Mr. Rumsey's identification with Wyoming dates from the 1^st of December, 1906, when he arrived at Fort Steele and became general manager for the Cosgriff Brothers Company, with whom he continued until the 4th of March, 1907, when he removed to Rock Springs and in connection with others purchased the business in which he is now engaged and which was then conducted under the name of Tim Kinney & Company. This was one of the first mercantile establishments in the state. On the 4^th of March, 1907, the business was incorporated under the style of the Stock Growers' Mercantile Company and from that time has been one of the successful and growing commercial interests of Wyoming and is today the most extensive general mercantile establishment in the state conducting both a wholesale and retail business. The officers of the company are: John G. Rumsey, president; W. H. Gottchie, of Rock Springs, vice president; J. W. Hay, secretary; while Mr. Rumsey is also the treasurer. As the executive head of this enterprise he has done much to shape its policy and control its interests. The company has ever been most careful concerning the personnel of the house, the line of goods carried, the treatment rendered customers and the methods followed. The reputation of the house for integrity and reliability is an unassailable one and in all that they undertake here the officers are actuated by a spirit of progressiveness that has brought good results. Mr. Rumsey is also president of the J. K. Moore Company at Fort Washakie and is the president of the Arapahoe Trading Company of Arapahoe, Wyoming. He is a man of marked business ability, forceful and resourceful, and carries forward to successful completion whatever he undertakes. The steps in his orderly progression are easily discernible. Obstacles and difficulties in his path have seemed but to serve as a stimulus and an impetus to renewed effort on his part and he has ever been watchful of all indications pointing to success in the lines of his trade and he meets every emergency that arises with the confidence that comes from a right conception of things and an habitual regard for what is best in the exercise of human activities. He now occupies an attractive home in Rock Springs, where his mother also resides, being hale and hearty at the age of eight-five years and keenly interested in current events. Mr. Rumsey delights in surrounding her with all of the comforts of life, thus repaying her in filial care for her devotion to him in his youthful years.
    In his political views Mr. Rumsey is a republican, while his religious faith is that of the Episcopal church. Fraternally he is an Elk and a thirty-second degree Mason and has crossed the sands of the desert with the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine.