USA > Michigan > Van Buren County > A history of Van Buren County, Michigan a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests Volume II > Part 2
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JOHN M. RIDLON .- Lacking but a few months of being ninety years of age, and in the long period of his earthly existence having had often trying, sometimes hazardous, and always instructive experience in several lines of useful endeavor; having started on life's journey in the remote East, and being, within a short time at the utmost, about to end it in the Middle West of this great country, and having also seen something of its Farther West by residence among its people for some years ; having taken up arms in defense of the Union when civil war threatened its dismember- ment, and devoted all the remainder of his years to augmenting its power, increasing its prosperity and promoting the welfare of its people by fruitful industry in the domain of peaceful production, John M. Ridlon, of Lawrence, this county, presents in his career an epitome of American history itself.
He saw the nation in the infancy of its life and has witnessed its struggles with the wild forces of nature and with foreign foes, and its triumph over both. He has seen it terribly torn and dis- tressed by internecine strife, and ending that to its far greater glory, progress and prosperity, and elevating its people through
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the baptism of blood to a higher conception and standard of hu- manity. He has beheld its mighty triumphs in every department of human activity, mental, moral and material, and to the full measure of his capacity and his opportunities he has aided in bringing about the great achievements the American people have written so luminously and in such large and enduring phrase in the annals of mankind.
Poetry sparkles, Heroism glows, Tragedy darkens in the texture of his long life, and the golden thread of sentiment runs brightly through its woof. Wide gulfs of time and space are compassed in its range and made as naught. Since it began-since the hardy New Englander first saw time and tide between him and his an- cestral home-distant countries have become near neighbors, the Atlantic has been made a narrow frith across which the Old World and the New shake hands, the Pacific has been bound to it with hoops of steel, and our own East and West have learned to look into each other's windows. The great Northwest, at the com- manding might of mind, has risen from her slumber of centuries, and, clad in comeliest habiliments, has come forth to greet her lord, the Genius of an advanced and progressive civilization, and laid all her treasures at his feet. And he who has lived that life and helped to make this record, is still among us in active vigor and usefulness, reminding all who know him of some genial year, proceeding to its close undoubtedly, but with its seasons of warmth, and bloom and fruitfulness not yet wholly spent.
Mr. Ridlon was born on May 16, 1822, in York county, Maine, not far from the town of Bonny Eagle. He is a son of Joseph and Mary (Hopkinson) Ridlon, also natives of that county, and belonging to families domesticated there for generations. Joseph Ridlon was a son of James, the second son of Mathias Ridlon, who was the third son of Magnus Ridlon. The last named was born and reared on the Shetland Islands off the north coast of Scotland, where his life began in 1698. In 1717, when he was nineteen years of age, he came to America and located in New England. There he reared a family and started the name in this country.
His grandson, Joseph Ridlon, the father of John M., was born in York county, Maine, on May 26, 1782, and in March, 1802, was united in marriage with Miss Mary Hopkinson, the daughter of William Hopkinson, of that county. They became the parents of five sons, who were, like themselves, constant and honest in their industry, clean, upright and moral in their lives, and steadily useful to the people around them in their several localities. They were all reared in their parental household, and all but John M. passed their lives on their native heath. He alone sought new scenes and associations and a new field of opportunity, and he is the only member of the family now living.
John M. Ridlon grew to the age of eighteen in his father's home. and by the time he reached that age he had already taught school three terms, although his own facilities for education were limited to those furnished by the primitive schools of the rural regions in his boyhood and youth. At the age of eighteen he found em- ployment as a clerk and salesman in a store in the town of Gorham, Cumberland county, but not far from his home. He remained
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in the store six years, and at the end of that period decided to come West. He located at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, with very little in the way of worldly wealth or capital for business, and took up one hundred and sixty acres of land which was still virgin to the plow and had never heard the persuasive voice of the husband- man. He cultivated this land for one year, then came to the con- clusion that he could do better in some other occupation.
The lumber trade was then assuming large proportions and a very active condition in that neighborhood, and he sold his farm and embarked in this line of mercantile business. He remained in the lumber trade four years, and during this period he was happily married to Miss Sarah M. Phelps, the daughter of A. H. Phelps, at that time a resident of Lawrence. The marriage took place in 1852, fifty-nine years ago, and both parties to the con- tract are still enjoying the union which made them one so long ago.
In 1854, two years after his marriage, Mr. Ridlon moved his family to Lawrence in this county, and bought a farm of ninety- four acres of land on the outskirts of the village or hamlet, as it was then, and in June, 1855, just one year after his arrival, he assumed the duties of deputy county treasurer of Van Buren county, under A. H. Phelps, his father-in-law, who had been elected treasurer. Mr. Ridlon served as deputy two years, and was then elected treasurer, being a candidate on the ticket which contained the name of General John C. Fremont as a candidate for the presi- dency of the United States, and was the first national ticket of the Republican party. His services were so acceptable to the people that they gladly elected him for a second term in the office of county treasurer.
This term expired on December 31, 1861, and on August 27, 1862, he was commissioned first lieutenant and quartermaster in the Twenty-fifth Michigan Infantry, then enlisted for service dur- ing the Civil war. He served in the army three years, lacking forty days, and was honorably discharged at Salisbury, North Carolina, on July 13, 1865. His services as quartermaster were rendered for a time at the headquarters of General Schofield in Ohio and at Knoxville, Tennessee, and afterward at the depart- ment headquarters of Kentucky in Louisville, of which General John M. Palmer was in command, and in performing them he was so capable and faithful to duty that he won the commendation of both these generals.
In 1866 Mr. Ridlon took up his residence in the village of Law- rence, building for his use the dwelling in which he now lives. He entered mercantile life again, and was in business for him- self five years, after which he gave up his establishment and worked in stores of other merchants until 1888, when he and his wife went to live with their daughter, Addie, who is the wife of James H. Yund and resides in Grand Island, Nebraska. Mr. Yund owns a store in that city, and Mr. Ridlon assisted him in its management eight years.
At the end of that time he returned to Lawrence, and here he and his wife have lived ever since. He has for a number of years been retired from active pursuits, except that he has acted as agent for several insurance companies. He and his wife have
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three children, thirteen grandchildren and three great-grandchil- dren. Their children are: Jennie F., who is the wife of S. M. Hess, of Lawrence; Addie B., who is the wife of James H. Yund, of Grand Island, Nebraska, as has been stated; and Charles A., whose home is at Roulette, Potter county, Pennsylvania, where he is superintendent of a stave factory, which carries on an extensive business.
Mr. Ridlon and all the members of his family belong to the Congregational church. He and his wife hold their membership in the church in Lawrence, of which he had long been one of the deacons, and will in all probability continue to be as long as he lives. His father was a deacon in his church, the Baptist, for many years, and was always spoken of as "Deacon Joseph" in the community of his home. This official connection with the church in father and son probably covers nearly a century of time, and furnishes a strong proof of their genuine worth, the uprightness of their lives and their steadfast interest in the welfare of the people among whom they lived and labored.
From his youth the venerable patriarch who is the interesting subject of these paragraphs has felt an interest in the affairs of his country and given special attention to the moral side of its government according to his convictions. He was a member of the Know Nothing party during its brief and stormy existence, and has been strong and steadfast in his devotion to the principles and candidates of the Republican party from its birth "Under the Oaks" in Jackson, Michigan. His loyalty to it has not been based on any hope of personal reward, but on his abiding faith in the virtue of his party and in its beneficence as an instrument in promoting good government, whether it be that of his county, his state or the nation. In political matters, as in all others, duty has thundered in his soul, and he has obeyed its supreme mandates.
HARRY L. McNEIL .- A lawyer by profession and an abstracter by occupation, H. L. McNeil, of Paw Paw, is connected with two lines of work in which the interests of the county and its people are deeply involved. He is serviceable to those interests in both, and in the latter the people have come to depend on him for full information concerning the titles to their real property, and to demand his services almost constantly. But he attends to their wants cheerfully and with alacrity, and gives them information and papers on which they can rely with full confidence as to their correctness and completeness.
Mr. McNeil is a native of Paw Paw, where he was born on April 21, 1870, and has passed nearly the whole of his subsequent life among its people. His parents were Allen F. and Alzina (Halsted) McNeil, the former a native of Michigan, born in 1844, and the latter, a native of Ohio. The father was a blacksmith and worked at his trade all his years after acquiring a knowledge of it. He died in 1909, at the age of sixty-five years. The mother is still living and has her home in Paw Paw, where she has lived many years and is well known and universally esteemed for her fidelity to every duty and the uprightness of her long career of quiet but effective usefulnes.
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They were the parents of but one child, the subject of this brief memoir. He obtained a high school education, being graduated in 1889, and then entered the office of Judge Heckert in Paw Paw, under whose direction he began the study of law. He passed one year in this office as a student, then entered the law depart- ment of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, from which he was graduated in 1892. During the next four years he de- voted himself wholly to the practice of his -profession. At the end of the period mentioned he bought the only abstracting busi- ness in Van Buren county, and since becoming the proprietor of this he has made it his chief concern and used his enterprise to make its operations co-extensive with the county and so com- plete as to meet every requirement of the people in its line of work.
Taking a broad and comprehensive view of his business, Mr. McNeil has made every effort to increase its usefulness and ex- pand the volume of its trade. He helped to organize the Michi- gan Abstract Association, and served as its secretary for four years. He was also one of the founders of the National Associa- tion of Title Men, of which he was the first national secretary. He is now a member of the National Judiciary Committee of that Association. His extensive and accurate knowledge of the law governing real property, and his careful and exhaustive study of his business have given him great weight and made him an accepted authority on all questions connected with or growing out of the subject of real estate titles in Van Buren county and also in a general way.
On October 18, 1893, Mr. McNeil was united in marriage with Miss Jennie Towers, a daughter of E. C. and Ella A. (Fuller) Towers, both natives of Michigan and the parents of two chil- dren, Mrs. McNeil and her brother Lewis E., a resident of Mat- tawan in this county. Mr. and Mrs. McNeil have but one child, Azel A., who was born on February 8, 1899. Mr. McNeil is in- dependent in politics, giving consideration in all campaigns only to the general welfare and ignoring partisan interests altogether. He is a member of the Order of Odd Fellows and during the year (1911) held the office of Grand Warden of the state in the order and in October of that year, at the annual session held in Saginaw, he was elected deputy Grand Master of the Grand Lodge. He also belongs to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He is in the first rank as a citizen, and the esteem bestowed on him is general and cordial.
WILLIS V. HALL .- This gentleman, who is now one of the enter- prising and progressive merchants and highly esteemed citizens of Paw Paw, has lived in the city but five years, but in that period has made an excellent reputation as a business man, up- right and independent in all his transactions, but wide-awake to the needs and interests of the community, and full of public spirit in helping to provide for them and promote the comfort, con- venience and general welfare of all classes of its residents.
Mr. Hall has been in business, either for himself or as man- ager for some one else, ever since he left school, and like that of
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most business men his life has passed through quiet scenes of daily routine and been uneventful in large measure. But unlike many business men, he has made the most of his opportunities for his own advancement and the service of the locality in which he has lived. Every step of his progress has been the result of his own efforts, unaided by favors of fortune or adventitious cir- cumstances.
He was born in Racine, Wisconsin, on February 14, 1876, and is a son of John H. and Louisa (Kingman) Hall, the former a native of Vermont and the latter of England. The father was a machinist and followed his trade to the end of his life, which came on May 12, 1881. The mother is still living and now re- sides in Chicago. They were the parents of two children, Willis V. and his brother George E., a resident also of Chicago, where he is a bookkeeper for the Apsley Rubber Company.
Willis V. Hall obtained a high school education in Kenosha, and then attended the Illinois College of Pharmacy in Chicago. After his graduation from that institution he followed the drug trade in Kenosha, Wisconsin, for six years. At the end of that period he moved to Chicago, where he became assistant manager of one of the stores of the Dearborn Drug Company, a position which he held continuously for five years. He next passed a number of years in drug supply work in Chicago.
In 1906 he moved to Paw Paw and bought a store, and in this he has ever since been conducting a general merchandising busi- ness with a steadily advancing volume of trade and an intensify- ing hold on the confidence and regard of the people of the city and the surrounding country. He has shown himself to be a thorough master of his business, and has conducted it with a close and satisfying study of the wants of the community in his lines of trade and the best method of supplying them. In this way he has made his store extensively popular and won great credit for himself as an energetic, enterprising and up-to-date merchant.
On July 30, 1900, Mr. Hall united in marriage with Miss Mira A. Grennell, a daughter of M. J. and Catherine (Morgan) Gren- nell and a native of Michigan. Two children have blessed the union and brightened the household, Wilbur Vern and Gilbert Kingman. The father is independent in political affairs, but is always deeply interested in the progress and improvement of the city and county of his home. He was elected village clerk of Paw Paw in 1911, and his ability in the office and devotion to duty with unswerving fidelity have brought him high encomiums for the value of his work and his close attention to the interests he has in charge. In fraternal relations he is a Freemason, and in church affiliation a Methodist, with ardent interest in the wel- fare of both his lodge and his church, taking an earnest and help- ful part in the work of each, as he does in connection with all other moral agencies at work among the people around him.
BANGS F. WARNER .- Selected for his appointment to the post- mastership of Paw Paw in 1900, because of his supposed special fitness for the office, Bangs F. Warner has demonstrated in his
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continuous service in the position since his first appointment that there was wisdom and good judgment in the selection, and the expectations involved in making it have been fully met in the capable and faithful performance of his official duties. He came to the office with his faculties well trained and his knowledge of public affairs expanded to considerable magnitude in a long and varied previous experience in several lines of usefulness, in all of which he has exhibited a high sense of duty and every quality of upright and enlightened manhood in the performance of it in an able and satisfactory manner.
Mr. Warner's life began in Almena township, Van Buren county, Michigan, on June 24, 1858. His parents, Elam L. and Charlotte M. (Bangs) Warner, were born in the state of New York, and further mention of the genealogy of this prominent family is made in the biographical sketch of Jerome C. Warner, uncle of the sub- ject, which is found on other pages of this work. In this locality the father of Bangs F. Warner grew to manhood, was married and reared his offspring. He died in 1902, at the age of seventy- four years. The mother is still living and has now reached the age of seventy-seven. The father was a farmer all his life and at the time of his death he owned one hundred and sixty-six acres of fine farming land in this county, which showed the benefit of his well-applied industry throughout a long series of years in its high state of development and cultivation, the complete and com- fortable character of its buildings and other improvements, to- gether with its general attractiveness and value as a farm and a rural home. The mother is still living in Van Buren county and is now the oldest of its people in continuous residence within its boundaries. She is venerated as a veritable "Mother in Israel" on this account and she also enjoys the high regard of all classes of the population because of her integrity of character, upright- ness of life and strong American womanhood. She and her hus- band were the parents of four children, one of whom, Roy E., died an infant. Those living are: Frances A., who resides in Paw Paw; Bangs F., the immediate subject of this brief memoir ; and Junia J., who resides in Oakland, California, and is the general passenger and freight agent of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad in that city, having held said position for a number of years.
Bangs F. Warner grew to manhood and was educated in this county, having been graduated from a high school in 1876, at the age of eighteen. After completing his education he became a farmer during the summer months and taught school in the win- ters of several years. He conducted schools at Kendall, Breeds- ville and other places in this county and at Middleville in Barry county, continuing in the profession until 1883, when he moved to Paw Paw and turned his attention to insurance as an occupation and means of advancement.
In 1889 he went to Idaho, and there for three years he bought range horses for shipment to the eastern markets. In 1893 he returned to his farm of one hundred acres in Waverly township, this county, where he remained until 1897, and made a specialty of dealing extensively in hay. In the year last mentioned he
ISAAC W. VAN FOSSEN
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again moved to Paw Paw, but continued his transactions in hay and has done so to the present time (1911). He has also been the postmaster of the city continuously since 1900, as has been noted, and enjoys an excellent reputation and general popularity for the manner in which he conducts the office and provides for the comfort and convenience of the people, whose welfare he makes the first consideration in the performance of his official duties within the law and the regulations governing the services, which, of course, he is obliged to obey.
Mr. Warner was married on November 2, 1882, to Miss Clara Bray, a daughter of Benjamin and Rebecca (Clark) Bray, and by this marriage became the father of one child, his son Leo E., who is now a bookkeeper in the First National Bank of Paw Paw. The father is a Republican in his political faith and allegiance and always loyal to his party, but he never allows party consider- ations to interfere with the faithful and impartial discharge of his duties. In fraternal relations he is affiliated with the Masonic order, the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America.
The people of Van Buren county esteem him highly for his upright and commendable manhood, his enterprise and public- spirit as a citizen, and his ability and fidelity as a public official. He also ranks high in business circles as a progressive and far- seeing dealer, modern in his methods and strictly square in all his transactions. He well deserves the rank they accord him as one of their leading and most representative men and in every feature of his daily life exemplifies it.
ISAAC W. VAN FOSSEN .- The venerable and venerated patriarch to whom these paragraphs are dedicated and the story of whose long and highly useful life they briefly chronicle, entered upon the great field of newspaper work at the age of sixteen and con- tinued in it until long after he passed the meridian of life. Dur- ing the extended period of his connection with that spectacular and sparkling line of human endeavor our country expanded and grew in power and importance as nothing in human history has ever done. It planted new commonwealths of vast expanse and almost boundless resources where but a little while before the Red Man roamed, the panther leaped, the deer disported, in a security that was undisturbed save by the ravages of one upon another. While it was passing, too, opposing political theories and their advocates were making history on our soil with the ele- vation of Man, the betterment of the race, as the prize of the con- tests.
The hereditary lord of the soil, although for the greater part of the time sullenly accepting his fate, occasionally rose against the advancing march of civilization, and our people had to reduce him to subjection, sometimes at a great sacrifice of life and treasure. The majestic march of mind, the advance of science and art, the progress of discovery and invention, the expansion of education for lofty and lowly, and all the other concomitants of a militant and strident civilization kept pace with the flight of time and the se- quence of events. And throughout the whole of it Mr. Van Fossen Vol. II-2
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was in touch with the leading thought and some of the leading ac- tors in the great progressive performance. His life is like a mighty bridge, spanning a wide, swift current of running water. Its one abutment rests on the undeveloped condition of the coun- try and its simplicity in life during our earlier days; and the other, when it shall have been completed-for he is still among us-will have its base in the full flower and fruitage of our twentieth cen- tury advancement and all that is involved therein.
Mr. Van Fossen was born at Livonia, Livingston county, New York, on July 24, 1826, and is a son of Isaac and Mary (Codding) Van Fossen, the former a native of Pennsylvania and the latter of New York. They were the parents of eleven children, of whom only Isaac W. and his brother Thomas D., of Springfield, Missouri, are living. The father and his elder brother, John, owned large mills at Livonia, New York, and were the most prominent men in that locality. Through the failure of banks in 1829 they lost their business and property and then came to Michigan. After a pros- pecting tour of the wild western territory, which was to be his future home and that of his family, the father returned east and reported conditions and prospects. In 1831 he and his brother William, who lived in Ann Arbor, purchased a section of land where Concord, in Jackson county, Michigan, now stands. He was still in the east and from there shipped the machinery for a new mill to his brother William, who had moved to the new section on Kalamazoo river. In 1833 the family came to this state, where he had erected a new log house, journeying by way of the Erie canal to Buffalo, and thence over Lake Erie by steamboat to Detroit. On their arrival in the Detroit river they found it full of Indian ca- noes, the day of their arrival being one on which the Indians re- ceived their annual allowance of money and presents from the gov- ernment. The family secured horses and wagons in Detroit and then made the journey overland to their new home in Jackson county, a distance of ninety-five or a hundred miles, as the crow flies, and the greater part of it through an almost unbroken wilder- ness in which there were no conveniences of travel.
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