USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > The city of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922, Vol. IV > Part 1
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GENEALOTY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00828 4504
The City of Detroit Michigan
1701-1922
PONTIAC.
VOLUME 1V
DETROIT-CHICAGO THE S. J. CLARKE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1922
EX. 20 - 6.00 (+ vol 3)
$
1180295
HENRY B. LEDYARD
BIOGRAPHICAL
HENRY BROCKHOLST LEDYARD, railroad ex- ecutive and philanthropist, was born in the American Embassy, Paris, France, February 20, 1844, son of Henry and Matilda (Cass) Ledyard; brother of Lewis Cass Ledyard, lawyer and capitalist of New York; grandson of General Lewis Cass, the most prominent figure in the history of Michigan; great-grandson of William Livingston, member of the continental con- gress and governor of New Jersey, and great-great- grandson of Philip Livingston, second lord of the Manor of Livingston. At the time of the birth of the subject, General Cass was United States minister to France, while Henry Ledyard, father of the subject, was secretary of legation in Paris. Henry Ledyard was an alderman in Detroit during 1849-50; was a member for six years of the first board of water com- missioners, and was mayor of Detroit in 1855.
Henry Brockholst Ledyard received his preliminary education at Washington A. Bacon's Select School for Boys in Detroit. He was appointed a cadet at large to the United States Military Academy at West Point by President Buchanan, while General Cass was secretary of state in the Buchanan cabinet. He was graduated at West Point in 1865 and on the day of his graduation was presented with two commissions, first and second lieutenant. He was assigned to the Nineteenth Infantry and he served successively as quartermaster of his regiment, brigade quartermaster and chief of the commissary officers of the depart- ment of Arkansas. Later he was transferred to the Thirty-seventh Infantry as quartermaster and then to the Fourth Artillery, with which he was detailed chief of subsistence on the staff of General Hancock, department of Missouri. He was in the field against the Indians in 1867 and for a year he was assistant professor of French at West Point. When the army was reorganized in 1870 and materially reduced, he acted on the advice of General Sherman and obtained a leave of six months to try his hand at railroading. He entered the engineering department of the North- ern Pacific Railroad, then under construction, but in the same year he transferred his affiliation to the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company as a clerk in the operating department. A month later he resigned his army commission. His advance was rapid. Two years later he was assistant superintendent of the road and the next year was advanced to super- intendent of the eastern division. In 1874 he was made assistant to William B. Strong, who had been shifted by James F. Joy from the Burlington to the
Michigan Central Railroad Company as general super- intendent. The following year Mr. Ledyard took over the duties of chief engineer in addition to those of assistant general superintendent. Two years there- after he was made general superintendent of the road, succeeding Strong, who was returned to the Burling- ton. The following year he was promoted to general manager. The Michigan Central at this time was credited with being little better than a third-class road. A floating debt of a million and a half dollars stood on its books. Its roadbed, train equipment and build- ings were in poor shape. A few years later the Van- derbilt interests acquired control of the road and Joy retired as president in favor of William H. Van- derbilt. It was Ledyard's idea to keep away from the issuance of bonds and stock-jobbing. This pleased the new owners and he was given full rein. In 1883 Vanderbilt turned over the presidency to him. He was one of the first of the younger railroad executives to fall in with the Newman theory of doubling the capacity of cars and having longer trains pulled by more powerful locomotives, thus reducing the cost of freight transportation. With this idea in mind, he proceeded to tear out and juuk practically every steel railroad bridge in the eastern division; rebuilt scores of miles of trackage and roadbed, and elini- inated as nearly as possible the curves and steep grades. When reconstruction work was completed the road was operating freight trains of eighty cars as against the former maximum of thirty, and the capacity of these cars had been doubled. The entire cost of this work was paid from the earnings. Then he started a campaign to create new business for the road. At this time he said to a friend: "I came to the con- clusion that to get new business we must provide facilities for men to make new business profitable. To encourage manufacturers to build on our lines by giving them shipping facilities as good as they could get in any other center." He had six miles of ter- minals built at River Rouge before a single industrial plant was located in that district. His whole idea of the proper manner to conduct a great railroad was "service to all." As a railroad chief his West Point training stood him in good stead. Obedience was a cardinal principle upon which he insisted. Careless- ness was not countenanced and incompetency meant summary dismissal. He never was familiar with sub- ordinates but always treated them candidly and with respect. He continued to build and to acquire ter- minals in Detroit until his road was able to show more
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manufacturing plants on its terminals than all other Detroit roads combined. In 1916 he acquired for the Michigan Central the Detroit Belt Line Railroad, on which are scores of large factories, among them the works of the Ford Motor Company. Problems which would have caused much worry among many railroad men were brushed aside by him with little ado. Within two hours after the destruction by fire of the old passenger station in Detroit, he was running trains out of the new station then in the hands of contractors but within two months of being finished. In only one instance did he go out of his own organization to fill a vacancy, and during his regime many Michigan Central office boys became executives. He continued as president of the road until 1905 and thereafter was chairman of the board. He was an active and loyal supporter of Christ Protestant Epis- copal church throughout his life, was a member of its vestry and at the time of his death had been for many years its senior warden. He was formerly president and afterward chairman of the board of the Union Trust Company and he was a director in the People's State Bank of Detroit. He was a member of the Society of the Cincinnati, by right of his great- grandfather, Major Benjamin Ledyard, Sons of the American Revolution and Knickerbocker Club at New York and of the Detroit, Yondotega and Country Clubs at Detroit. His home was at Grosse Pointe Farms, Detroit. He found his chief recreation in golf, also in gathering together an extraordinary collection of rare volumes.
General Rufus Ingalls, quartermaster of the Army of the Potomac, said he considered Mr. Ledyard one of the ablest masters of transportation of his time. "In an emergency," he said, "he could run a dozen railroads and provision five armies at a time. . . . He inherited this ability from his grandfather. Lewis Cass was the best army supplier we had in the War of 1812, and when appointed territorial governor of Michigan he was de facto quartermaster of the whole northwestern country." Politically he was a democrat up to the time of the free silver heresy, since when he voted for the republican party. But politics did not concern much this genius of the rail. To office holding he preferred to stand as the synonym for rail- road operation of the highest class. He made his road one of the two best in the middle west. He might be said to have built the Michigan Central. Many regard it as a great and enduring and honorable mon- ument to his work. Few men leave behind them such concrete proofs of their service to mankind. What he did toward making Detroit so progressive that it hurdled in population several sister cities; what he did toward making Michigan rich and solidly prosperous, is beyond calculation, but unquestionably he was one of the great constructive pioneers of the common- wealth. The greatest engineering enterprise in con- nection with railroad transportation which has been accomplished in Michigan since the beginning of that
industry, was initiated and carried out by him-the submarine crossing of the Detroit river. The seduc- tiveness of the high-financing, manipulative side of railroad chieftancy never possessed his spirit. His conception of transportation was to fetch and carry people and things with expedition and the fullest degree of security, to make his system scientifically abreast of the age. Capable of great concentration and self-discipline, he was a silent and detached man whose soul was in his work. He survived many changes in personnel and lived to see many of his dreams come true. He was one of the most reticent yet one of the most over-towering figures in the life of Detroit, and in his own circle one of the most beloved. For two minutes during his funeral obsequies, for the first time in the history of the Michigan Central, all the rolling stock stopped simultaneously by order, in his honor. The crudity which tradition attaches to our strong business men was no part of Henry B. Ledyard's character. He was a gentleman, in a sense of the word rarely employed today in the United States. He belonged to that valid aristocracy which has almost been swept away by industrialism and all but supplanted by a ruling class whose sole qualifica- tion is capital. His will left bequests to the Chil- dren's Free Hospital Association, to Christ Protestant Episcopal church and to the Railroad Young Men's Christian Association of Detroit.
Mr. Ledyard was married October 15, 1867, to Mary, daughter of Stephen L'Hommedieu of Cincinnati, pro- jector and for twenty-five years president of the Cin- cinnati, Hamilton & Dayton Railroad. Mrs. Ledyard died March 30, 1895, four children surviving her: Matilda Cass Ledyard, who was married in 1897 to Baron von Ketteler of Berlin, Germany, at that time the German minister to Mexico and afterwards min- ister to China, where he was murdered in the Boxer uprising in Pekin in 1900; Henry, an attorney of Detroit, member of the firm of Campbell, Bulkley & Ledyard; Augustus Canfield, who was killed in action in the Philippines as first lieutenant of the Sixth United States Infantry on the 6th of December, 1899; and Hugh, secretary and treasurer of the Art Stove Company of Detroit. Henry B. Ledyard died at Grosse Pointe Farms on May 25, 1921.
HON. DON McDONALD DICKINSON, who was long a distinguished member of the bar and was a national figure during the administrations of Presidents Cleveland, Mckinley and Roosevelt, passed away in 1916. He had left the impress of his individuality in large measure upon the history of the country through an extended period and had exerted a marked influence over public thought and action in relation to many questions of national importance. He was born in Port Ontario, Oswego county, New York, January 17, 1846, his parents being Colonel Asa C. and Minerva (Holmes) Dickinson. He was but two years of age when the family home was established
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in Michigan and in the public schools and under private tutors he acquired his preliminary education, which served as the broad foundation upon which to build the superstructure of his professional knowledge. He won his LL. B. degree upon graduation from the University of Michigan with the class of 1867 and devoted many years to practice not only in Michigan but also in New York and Washington, his ability winning him distinction as one of the eminent lawyers of the country.
Mr. Diekinson came naturally into prominence in connection with the great political movements and problems of the country and in 1876 was chosen chair- man of the democratie state central committee of Michigan. In 1880 he became a member of the dem- ocratie national committee, so continuing until 1885, and his recognized prominence as a democratie leader was manifest in his appointment by President Cleve- land to the position of postmaster general in 1887. He remained a member of the cabinet for two years. He was also chairman of the democratic national cam- paign committee of 1892 and in 1893 he was tendered but declined a cabinet position. In 1896 he was made senior counsel of the United States before the in- ternational high commission on Behring sea claims, under the fur seal arbitration, his duties in that connection elaiming his attention for two years. He was also made a member of the court of arbitration to adjust the controversy between the United States and the republic of San Salvador in 1902, for through the administrations of Presidents Cleveland, Mckinley and Roosevelt he was the senior counsel of the United States, and he was democratie national chairman in promoting the interests of President Cleveland for a third term.
On the 15th of June, 1869, General Dickinson was married to Miss Frances L. Platt, daughter of Dr. Alonzo Platt of Michigan, and they became the parents of a daughter and a son: Frances C., now the wife of George H. Barbour, Jr., and Don Me- Donald, Jr., who is mentioned elsewhere in this work.
General Dickinson remained throughout his life an active factor in law practice and in shaping publie thought and action. His labors were long a contribut- ing factor in guiding the destinies of the nation and he was regarded as the peer of the ablest representa- tives of international law in the United States. His cooperation was also sought in connection with many interests of local importance. The welfare and pro- gress of Detroit was always a matter of deep interest and concern to him and he served as one of the trustees and president of the Detroit Museum of Art, was also vice president of the Jefferson Memorial Association and president of the Senator MeMillan Memorial Association. He held membership in the Detroit Board of Commerce and was a director of the First National Bank. At one time he was the presi- dent of the Detroit Bar Association, held membership in the Michigan State Bar Association and the Ameri-
can Bar Association and he belonged as well to the American Historical Association and to the Chi Psi, a college fraternity. In club eireles, too, he was widely known, having membership with the Pilgrims of London, the Manhattan, National Democratic and the Pilgrims of New York, the Huron Mountain Club of Chicago, the Detroit Club, of which he was at one time president, and also with the Bankers, Detroit Boat, University and Country Clubs, all of Detroit. He constantly labored for the right as he saw it and from his earliest youth devoted a large por- tion of his time to the service of others, and in the course of years, as a consequence of his developing powers, that service was demanded for the benefit of the nation. He was not an idle sentimentalist but a worker who possessed a statesman's grasp of affairs and whose knowledge of international law en- abled him to find acceptable solution for many intricate and involved publie problems. His family and friends can rejoice in his memory as that of a man who used wisely and well the talents with which nature endowed him and who laid down his tasks in the twilight of the day when all that he had to do had been nobly and fully completed.
BLAND A. PUGH. Fortified by excellent prelim- inary discipline and by a distinet predilection for his chosen profession, Bland A. Pugh is one of the repre- sentative younger members of the Detroit bar and in his practice, which is of general order, he is grad- ually directing his activities into the special field of corporation law and the legal phases of the stock and bond business. He is a member of the progressive Detroit law firm of Prentiss, Mulford, Pugh & Fitch, with offices on the eighth floor of the Dime Bank building.
Mr. Pugh was born at Webb City, Missouri, January, 27, 1893, and is a son of William C. and Alice B. Pugh. He was about twenty-three years of age when the family home was established at Ann Arbor, Mich- igan, his educational advantages after leaving the public schools having included those of Albion Col- lege, at Albion, Michigan, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1915, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He then entered the law depart- ment of the University of Michigan, in which he completed the prescribed enrrienlum and was grad- nated in 1917, his reception of the degree of Bachelor of Laws having been virtually coincident with his admission to the Michigan har.
Patriotism outranked professional ambition at the time when Mr. Pugh would normally have initiated his career as a lawyer, for on the 15th of May, 1917, about one month after the nation became involved in the World war, he enlisted for service in the Detroit hospital nnit of Base Hospital, No. 36. On the 10th of the following November he arrived with his nnit in France and shortly after he was made sergeant and assigned to duty at Chaumont, in charge of the per-
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sonnel of a receiving hospital as Base No. 15. There- after he passed some time in hospital service near the front lines, and he then returned to Base Hospital, No. 36, which continued the stage of his earnest serv- ice until July, 1918, when he was assigned to general headquarters at Tours, where he took an examination for commission and was assigned to general head- quarters at Bordeaux, in September, 1918. While here stationed he accomplished an unusual and most credit- able service, in connection with extinguishing a fire that threatened the destruction of a vessel laden with high explosives. After the crew and detail of soldiers working to subdue the fire had fled from the ship, Mr. Pugh, with rare- fortitude and presence of mind, called volunteers to his aid and directed the work of putting out the fire, the progress of which meant dis- aster, not only in the destruction of thousands of tons of valuable cargo but also endangering the lives of many persons. For his work in this connection he was cited for bravery and was awarded the distinguished French decoration, the Croix de Guerre. Finally be- ing given the alternative of accepting a commission or returning home, Mr. Pugh chose the latter, some time after the signing of the armistice, and upon his return to America he received his honorable discharge, on the 11th of March, 1919. In the following September he became a member of the representative Detroit law firm in which he continues a principal, and with char- acteristic energy and fidelity he is devoting himself to the practice of his profession, with a fine sense of personal stewardship and with the ability that insures success and growth. Mr. Pugh is a member of the Detroit Bar Association and the Lawyers Club, holds membership in the Fellowcraft Club and is affiliated with the Sigma Chi fraternity and the Masonic order. His political allegiance is given to the democratic party.
THOMAS A. E. WEADOCK, attorney at law, was born in Ballygarret, Ireland, January 1, 1850, a son of Lewis and Mary (Cullen) Weadock. The family is of Flemish origin, although domiciled in County Wexford for many years. His grandfather took part in the Irish rebellion in 1798, at which time the great- grandfather, who was a non-combatant, aged eighty-five years, was murdered by members of the infamous Hunter Gowan Cavalry. In the maternal line the family is also one of long connection with Ireland.
Thomas A. E. Weadock came with his parents to America in 1850, the family home being established on a farm near St. Marys, Ohio, where he spent the early years of his life. He attended the district schools and also the union school of St. Marys, but following his father's death, which occurred in De- cember, 1863, he was obliged to leave school and take up the management of the home farm. While thus engaged he devoted every leisure hour to reading and study, being especially interested in biography and history, his reading along these lines opening up the
world to this country bred boy. He managed the farm until his brother returned from the army, having served in defense of the Union during the Civil war.
Leaving home in 1865, Thomas A. E. Weadock went in search of employment to Cincinnati, Ohio, and there entered a printing office but soon tired of the work and for some months thereafter was employed in clerking. He then decided to return to St. Marys, Ohio, and soon afterward took up the profession of teaching, which he followed in the counties of Aug- laize, Shelby and Miami, Ohio, for a period of five years, at the same time pursuing his own studies while teaching others. With the money thus earned he paid his tuition as a student in the law department of the University of Michigan, which he entered in 1871. During vacation periods he read law in Detroit and on the 26th of March, 1873, was graduated with the LL. B. degree. On the 8th of April, 1873, he was admitted to practice at the bar of the supreme court in Detroit and in June of the same year was admitted to practice by the bar of the supreme court of Ohio. Hon. George Hoadley was at that time chairman of the examining committee and when Mr. Weadock again met him Governor Hoadley was acting as special counsel for the United States before the house committee on the Pacific railroad, of which Mr. Weadock was a member. He was admitted to the bar of the United States supreme court in 1882.
Mr. Weadock intended to practice in Ohio but cir- cumstances caused him to return to Michigan and he finally located at Bay City on the 12th of September, 1873. There he took up the active work of the courts and not only made progress along the line of his pro- fession but also became a recognized factor in public affairs of the community. In 1883 he was elected mayor of Bay City and so served until 1885, becoming also ex-officio chairman of the police commission, likewise a trustee of the library and several other boards. On the expiration of his term as mayor he declined a renomination. He then continued the practice of law, in which his younger brother, John C. Weadock, became associated with him, the part- nership being maintained for many years. The brother is now one of the eminent lawyers of New York city. They conducted many important cases both in Michi- gan and other states, among which may be mentioned the cases of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York vs. Menner in Pennsylvania; the Mundy will case in Wisconsin; and Jenkins vs. the Pennsyl- vania Railroad Company in Ohio. Mr. Weadock of this review was assistant prosecuting attorney for Bay county for nearly two years, at which time his partner, G. M. Wilson, was the prosecuting attorney. Mr. Weadock was appointed to succeed Mr. Wilson, who died in office in July, 1877, and in that position Mr. Weadock served until December 31, 1878. Dur- ing his incumbency Bay county was freed from many lawless characters that infested it. Moreover, the liquor law which was enacted in 1875 had never been
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enforced, but by him was taken up vigorously, more liquor taxes being collected in Bay county during this period than in any other county of the state except Wayne, which had many times the population of Bay. Waitresses in saloons and kindred resorts were no longer tolerated and their keepers were sent to prison. The conditions are described in "The Blazed Trail." Subsequent to his retirement from office Mr. Weadock was connected with many im- portant criminal cases in Bay county, and elsewhere, sometimes representing the defense and as often act- ing as counsel for the prosecution. The cases which he tried before the supreme court were first reported in the Michigan Reports, No. 36, and may be found in almost every volume issued since. Among these may be mentioned Cathart vs. Merritt township, the hold- ing being that ditch orders can only be paid out of the fund on which they are drawn. Another case was that of Bay county vs. Bradley, and still another, Smith vs. Barrie, in which conditions in deeds in restraint of the sale of liquor were sustained. He was likewise connected with the case of Altman vs. Ritteshofer, in which it was held that attorneys' fees on a promissory note destroyed their negotia- bility. Hess vs. Culver vs. Spore vs. Green in which the "Bohemian Oats" swindle was exposed; Circuit Judge MeCoy vs. Brennan and Murphy vs. MeGraw. Other notable cases in which he figured were those of the Merchants Bank vs. Ortmann; Otsego Lake vs. Kersten, concerning the power of township boards; Maltby vs. Plummer, involving timber interests and considered a leading case; Taylor vs. the Bay City Street Railway, a case arising under the charter of Bay City, but decided against Mr. Weadock in the circuit court, the decision, however, being reversed when the case was carried to the supreme court of Michigan, which judgment was also snstained in the supreme court of the United States. His handling of a case is always full and comprehensive, yet he never indulges in the drapery of rhetoric to enshroud his cause in any illusion. The strength of his argument lies in his clear presentation and correct application of legal principles to the points at issue.
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