USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Historical review of Chicago and Cook county and selected biography, Volume II > Part 41
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After the war Mr. Hunt was appointed superintendent of the experimental Bessemer steel works at Wyandotte, Michigan, which was controlled by a number of iron companies (of which the Cambria was one), and in this capacity had charge of the first Bessemer steel plant operated in America. In May, 1866, he returned to the home works to become superintendent of the steel business of the Cambria Iron Company, at Johnstown, continuing thus for several years. In IS7I he assisted George Fritz, chief engineer of the company, in designing and erecting their Bessemer plant, of which, on its com- pletion, he assumed charge, remaining in the employ of the Cambria
Robert W. Kounb
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Iron Company until August, 1873, when he removed to Troy, New York. He there entered the employ of Jolin A. Griswold & Com- pany as superintendent of their Bessemer works, and later was made general superintendent of their entire plant, known as the Albany & Rensselaer Iron and Steel Works and later as the Troy Steel and Iron Co. In this position he remained until April 1, 1888.
In these various connections, covering a period of more than twenty years, Mr. Hunt acquired high standing as one of the pioneers in the manufacture of Bessemer steel. The earliest steel rails man- ufactured in the United States on a commercial scale were turned out under his direction at the Cambria plant and it was with a national reputation that he came to Chicago, in 1888, to establish the engi- neering house which he still guides and develops. The principal office of Robert W. Hunt & Company is in Chicago, with branches in New York, Pittsburg, Philadelphia, San Francisco, St. Louis, Montreal and London (England). The bulk of its business is in the inspection of railway, bridge and building materials, and the testing of boilers, engines, pumps, etc. Much work in the latter line has been done for the city of Chicago, in connection with its waterworks, and the house has also represented St. Paul and Buffalo in the same capacity. Electric power stations are also designed; investigations and reports made upon municipal properties ; and railway materials, pumping stations, cars, bridges, etc., are also inspected for foreign purchasers. The scope of the business is, in fact, world-wide.
An idea of Mr. Hunt's standing with the leaders of his profession may be gained from an enumeration of his official connections with the chief organizations of his fraternity. In 1883-4 he served as president of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, to which office he was again elected in 1906; was president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1891, and of the Western Society of Engineers in 1893. He is also a leading member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Institution of Civil Engineers, British Iron and Steel Institute, and Institution of Mechanical Engineers of England. At the present time he is a member of the executive com- mittee of the advisory board appointed by the president of the United States to examine into the value of different fuels and struc- tural materials. His contributions to the literature of metallurgy have been of great value as well as his practical participation in the
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industries founded upon the science. He has been granted a number of patents on metallurgical process and machinery, the most notable of which are those relating to the automatic handling of steel rails during the operation of rolling. he being the first to actually success- fully employ such machinery on a commercial scale.
In 1866 Mr. Hunt married Miss Eleanor Clark, of Ecorse, Wayne county, Michigan, his wife being a daughter of George Clark, a highly honored pioneer of that state.
Mr. Clark was born March 9, 1804, in Kingston, Ontario county, New York. His grandfather served with distinction in the Conti- nental Army during the war for American independence, and his father, John Clark, was a captain of cavalry in the war of 1812. Captain Clark's home was at Blackrock, New York, and was de- spoiled by the British troops during that war. Together with his father's family, George Clark removed to Michigan in 1819, locating at Ecorse, Wayne county. He was among the first to realize the economic importance of the fish product of the waters of the Great Lakes, and in 1833 established what was for the times a large plant for catching and packing whitefish and herring on Grassy Island, in the Detroit river opposite his home. Later he had other plants at various locations. He early advocated the practicability of fish cul- ture, claiming that an acre of water should be made to yield a pro- portionate amount of food supply to an acre of land. He assisted Prof. J. W. Milliner in obtaining specimens for the piscatorial collec- tion of the Smithsonian Institute.
Upon the organization of the Michigan State Fish Commission in 1873, Governor Bagley appointed him a member, which position he occupied at the time of his death October 14, 1877. Mr. Clark wrote much for the current literature on fish, their habits, etc., and was a valued friend of Professors Agassiz and Baird. He secured a number of patents pertaining to aquatic occupations, the most prominent of which was a metallic life raft which is still largely used on lake boats. Mr. Clark was a Republican in politics.
Mr. Hunt enjoys a wide popularity, being a member of the Chicago, Mid-Day, Engineers, South Shore Country, New Illinois Athletic, Edgewater Golf, and Chicago Golf clubs, and at present is president of the Glen View club, all of Chicago; Duquesne Club, Pittsburg, and the Engineers' Club and St. Andrew's Golf Club, of
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New York. Mr. Hunt is an attendant of St. James Episcopal church and is a Republican in politics. He is a member of John A. Griswold Post No. 338, Grand Army of the Republic, of Troy, New York, of which he was Commander from 1884 to 1888, resigning the position when he removed to Chicago.
Robert Closson Spencer, Jr., who has practiced his profession as an architect in Chicago for the past dozen years, was born in Mil-
ROBERT C. waukee, Wisconsin, in 1864, son of Robert C. and
SPENCER, JR. Ellen W. (Whiton) Spencer. His grandfather, Platt R. Spencer, was the author of the beautiful system of penmanship known as "Spencerian," and his American ancestry on both sides dates back to pre-Revolutionary days. His father, Robert C. Spencer, senior, is a liberal minded and public spirited citizen who is highly honored by the people of the Cream City and widely known as a pioneer business educator and champion of day schools for the deaf.
Robert C. Spencer, Jr., after leaving the Milwaukee High School, graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1886 as a mechanical engineer. Having from early years shown an intense fondness for drawing and painting, he decided to adopt architecture as a profes- sion offering better opportunity for artistic expression than engineer- ing, and after a year spent in the office of H. C. Koch of Milwaukee, he devoted a year to the study of design in the architectural depart- ment of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After three years spent as a designer in the well known offices of Wheelwright & Haven, and Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge of Boston, and while em- ployed in the latter office in connection with the completion of Trinity church, Mr. Spencer won in competitive examination the Rotch travel- ing scholarship.
This much sought for professional honor has been awarded to no other western man. The examination for this scholarship (the oldest and most liberally endowed architectural scholarship in Amer- ica) is open to all young men under thirty who have served two years in the office of a Massachusetts architect. After two years spent abroad-as the eighth holder of this scholarship-in architec- tural study and travel (chiefly in France and Italy), Mr. Spencer returned to Shepley. Rutan & Coolidge, re-entering their Chicago . office to take direct charge of the interior design and decoration of
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the Chicago Public Library, many of the rich details of marble, mosaic and plaster in this building being from his hand. Since 1895 Mr. Spencer has actively practiced his profession in Chicago, where he has gained a national reputation as a designer of charm- ing country houses, examples of his work being found in the estates of such well known Chicagoans as Charles L. Hutchinson, Harlow N. Higinbotham, Charles A. Stevens and E. A. Hamill. In 1899- 1900 he designed and illustrated for the Ladies' Home Journal a series of seven model farm houses which attracted wide attention. Since then he has contributed special articles on various phases of domestic architecture to the House Beautiful magazine, Country Life in America, the Brick Builder, etc., as an authority in his special field. In 1899 he married Ernestine Elliott of Bath, Maine, and their chil- dren are 'Marian, Ernestine and Charles, the family home being in River Forest, Illinois. In 1905 Mr. Spencer took into partnership Horace S. Powers. Mr. Spencer is a member of the Sigma Chi fra- ternity, the Cliff Dwellers, the City, and University clubs, and is an associate of the American Institute of Architects. In politics he is an independent.
Alfred Hoyt Granger, member of the firm of Frost & Granger, leading Chicago architects, is of old New England stock, tracing the
ALFRED H. founder of his family in America to Launcelot
GRANGER. Granger, who emigrated from England to Massa- chusetts in 1643 and married Joanna, daughter of Robert Adams, of Ipswich, who had preceded her husband to this country by eight years. He himself is a native of Ohio, born in Zanesville, May 31, 1867, the son of Moses Moorehead and Mary Hoyt (Reese) Granger. He obtained his early education in the common and grammar schools of his native place, and later became a student at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, from which he gradu- ated in the- class of '87.
Mr. Granger's professional education was pursued, first, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in which he took a special two years' course in architecture, and afterward for several years in Paris, being a student at the Academie Julian, as well as under the celebrated M. Leteurte. From Paris, in 1891, he at once came to Chicago and entered the office of Jenney & Mundie, and later that of Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge. In June, 1893, he established an inde-
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pendent business at Cleveland, subsequently forming a partnership with Frank B. Meade, under the firm name of Granger & Meade, which lasted until December 31, 1897. On the first of the year 1898 he became associated with Charles S. Frost, of Chicago, and the resulting firm of Frost & Granger is now among the best known in the city. The principal buildings erected by them are the LaSalle Street station for the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern and the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Companies, the general office building of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company on Jackson boulevard and Franklin street, the Hibbard, Spencer & Bart- lett Company's massive store on State and South Water streets, and the Northern Trust Company's bank, corner of LaSalle and Monroe streets. The firm is now engaged in the preparation of drawings for the new Northwestern Terminal station.
Mr. Granger is a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, American Institute of Architects, Military Order of the Loyal Legion, and of the Chicago, University, Mid-Day, Caxton and Saddle and Cycle clubs of Chicago; the Onwentsia Club, of Lake Forest, Illinois; Rowfant Club, of Cleveland, and the Grolier, Players, and City clubs, of New York. He resides in a beautiful suburban home at Lake Forest, and has from the first taken a deep interest and a leading part in local public affairs, having already served four years in the town council and being otherwise identified with the general interests of the place.
Mr. Granger's wife was formerly Miss Belle Hughitt, daughter of Marvin Hughitt, for thirty years past president of the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad. Their union occurred October 4, 1893, and they have become the parents of the following children: Elisa- beth Sherman, born November 28, 1895; Barbara Hughitt, May 23, 1899, and Martha Mccullough, November 22, 1900.
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