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 6
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educated in the Empire state and came to Michigan in 1853, Van Buren county being his objective point. Here he and his brother accumulated considerable property. He was a Jackson Democrat. His wife was a native of New York. The remains of both are in- terred in Keeler.
When Mr. and Mrs. Haydon began life it was on the present es- tate and their home is known as "Shady Knoll." They have seven hundred and forty acres, all in this township, and the fine improve- ments thereupon have been achieved by the subject and his wife. The former is a Republican and his first presidential vote was cast for Grant. He is a "progressive" in his ideas. Both Mr. and Mrs. Haydon are believers in the Spiritualistic faith and meet with the society established in Hamilton township fully seventeen years ago. There are one or two meetings each year, when some of the leading lecturers of the faith appear before them.
Mr. and Mrs. Haydon and their daughter are active members of the Hamilton Grange. There are seventy members. At one time there was a membership of over three hundred. The Grange Hall is located in the center of the township.
Mr. and Mrs. Haydon are leading citizens and come from old and well-established families. They are held in highest esteem by all who know them and none are more worthy of recognition in this volume.
The father of the subject was one of the most active Republicans in his locality and represented his people in the state legislature from 1844 to 1851, and in 1859 he held the office of state senator. He was supervisor of the township and this office was given into his keeping as long as he would hold it. He was a Christian gen- tleman in act and principle and did much for the furtherance of the general welfare. After the death of his first wife he married again, Miss Eliza Buck becoming his wife on October 24, 1880. A son and two daughters were born to them and the son and a daugh- ter survive. F. Mortimer is a resident of Hamilton township, re- siding on the old estate and being engaged in agriculture. He mar- ried Frances Skinner. Addie M. is the wife of Dr. F. C. Williams, a resident of Syracuse, New York, and a graduate of the University of Michigan. He is a very successful physician and surgeon. Dr. and Mrs. Williams have a son, Harold.
WILLIAM M. TRAVER .- To create something out of nothing is held to be impossible for human power to accomplish, yet to the casual observer that is what William M. Traver, of Hartford, Van Buren county, Michigan, seems to have achieved. He was the creator and has from the start been the proprietor and motive power of the Traver Cannery in Hartford, which is one of the largest in the state. The enterprise is devoted to canning all kinds of fruits and vegetables, has a capacity of one hundred and fifty cars a season, and always has more orders than it has fa- cilities to fill at once. The business is very extensive and ac- tive, and the cannery is a source of great benefit to the county in the employment it gives to labor, the ready market it affords for local products in its lines of raw material, and the large
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amount of money it keeps continually in circulation in the com- munity in which it operates so extensively and successfully.
Mr. Traver did not, however, create this big enterprise out of nothing. It is true he had no capital, in the way of money, to start with, and Fortune has never bestowed upon him any of her special favors. He began the battle of life as a poor young man forced to make his livelihood by whatever means he found avail- able, and to work for very meager compensation while getting a start. But he had that within him which was better than money capital, and the business he has established and built up to such magnitude is the result of his native energy, capacity, strong determination to make circumstances his obedient slaves, his quick- ness of observation in seeing and alertness in seizing opportunities for advancement, and his persistent industry in making the most of them when he had them.
Mr. Traver is a native of Hartford township, this county, and was born on August 1, 1867. He was reared on a farm and edu- cated in the district school near his home. The circumstances of the family were such that he was forced to begin making his own living at an early age, and to do this he entered the employ of a wholesale grocery store in a very subordinate station. He was attentive to his duties, soon showed unusual capacity for the business, and made himself so valuable to his employer that his advancement in the service was steady and continued.
But this is not the whole story. Mr. Traver worked hard, lived economically, denied himself all unnecessary expenditures, and saved his money to aid in procuring him a better position and larger opportunities in business. His great aim was to have an establishment of his own, and he bent all his energies to securing one. He kept his eyes open, too, so that no chance for the ac- complishment of his wishes, or that would help toward this, should pass him by unutilized. In time he found himself pre- pared to start something for himself, and the rapid development of the canning industry, together with the extensive production of fruits and vegetables in his locality, furnished him the longed for opening.
He built his large plant in 1904, using cement or concrete blocks in the construction of the building, and equipped it with the best modern devices known to the business. He then began opera- tions, and the new institution was soon found to be mutually beneficial to him and the community around him. His facilities for preserving the products of the region stimulated the old growers of fruits and vegetables to greater activity and larger plantings, and also brought many new ones into the field of pro- duction. The excellence of his output from the beginning soon brought his cannery a wide-spread reputation, and a large busi- ness. He found a rapidly increasing demand for his goods and was obliged to enlarge his facilities and augment his resources to meet the requirements of his trade, and this condition has con- tinued to the present time, with still greater prospects for the years to come, for the trade is growing more extensive all the time.
Mr. Traver has been married three times, but his son William
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S., is his only child, the fruit of the second marriage, and is now twelve years old. The father is active in the fraternal life of his community and stands high in three of the leading benevolent societies. He belongs to Florada Masonic Lodge, No. 309, at Hartford, and also to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias. His political faith and allegiance are given to the Republican party, but he has never been an active partisan. He has no desire for political prominence or public office, and his business requires all his time and attention except what is necessary for the ordinary duties of citizenship, and these he never neglects. He is zealous in helping to promote the progress and development of his township and county and contributes in any way open to him to the general and lasting welfare of their resi- dents. In all respects he is a very estimable citizen, and is uni- versally esteemed as such.
JOSEPH LABADIE .- Although born and reared on a farm, Joseph Labadie, of Paw Paw township, Van Buren county, has not ex- pended all his efforts in life on his own account as a farmer. He has devoted a portion of his time to other pursuits with advan- tage to himself, but in the main he has followed the occupation of his forefathers for many generations and has prospered in it. He has one of the finest farms in Paw Paw township. It is in the rich bottom land, and from the beginning his efforts to make it productive and profitable have succeeded admirably.
Mr. Labadie knows Paw Paw township thoroughly, as he has passed the whole of his life to this time (1911) in it, and been connected with its industries in an active way from his boyhood. His life began in the township on September 22, 1867, his par- ents, George and Eliza (Scott) Labadie, being residents of it at the time. They were natives of the state of New York, and of English ancestry. The father was a farmer all his life from youth, and was one of the first settlers within the present limits of Van Buren county. He hewed his farm out of the wilderness, and transformed it into an attractive, valuable and well improved rural home.
There were seven children born in the family, six of whom are living: George, who is a resident of Allegan county; Joseph, who is the immediate subject of this review; Kittie, who is the wife of Samuel Handle, of Porter, Midland county, Michigan; Jesse, who lives in Paw Paw; Grace, the wife of Oscar Baughter, also a resident of Paw Paw; and Thomas, whose home is in Florida. Lillie, the third child in the order of birth, died a number of years ago, making the only break in the family circle.
Joseph Labadie remained at home with his parents until he reached the age of sixteen, attending the district school when he had opportunity in relief from the work on the farm, in which he made a full hand from his early youth. After leaving home he followed farming for twelve years, then turned his attention to teaming in Paw Paw, in which he was engaged until 1902. In that year he bought fifty acres of land in Almena township, which he cultivated until 1906. He then sold this tract and pur- chased one hundred and ten acres in section 5, Paw Paw township,
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to which he has since added twenty acres by another purchase, and he now has one of the finest and most valuable bottom land farms in the township, as has already been stated, and what it is he has made it, using its natural richness and fertility as the base of his operations, and making the most of them by intelligent and judicious cultivation. He carries on thriving industries in gen- eral farming and raising and feeding cattle for the markets.
On March 3, 1894, Mr. Labadie was married to Mrs. Flora (Jacobs) Franklin, a daughter of Lucius C. and Hester Ann (Snyder) Jacobs, who came from Indiana to Michigan and lo- cated in Van Buren county. They had nine children : Flora, now Mrs. Labadie; Ella, the wife of Ernest Hungerford, of Kala- mazoo county ; William, who is a resident of Paw Paw; Eugene, who lives at Honor in this state; Thomas, John and Louis, all residents of Paw Paw; Robert, whose home is at La Porte, In- diana ; and Myrtle, the wife of Guy Cooper, of North Dakota.
Mrs. Labadie's first husband was William B. Franklin, of Mantua, Ohio. By her marriage with him she had one child, her son Otto C. Franklin, who is now living with her. Since her marriage with Mr. Labadie she has become the mother of one additional child, their son Paul, who is still living at home with his parents and assisting in the work on the farm.
Mr. Labadie's deep and abiding interest in the welfare of his township and county leads him to ignore partisan considerations in local public affairs and act in the bestowal of his suffrage in- dependently. His primary purpose in reference to all public matters is to aid in promoting the best interests of the people around him, and he always votes with this object in view and for its attainment as far as possible. He does the same with refer- ence to all other functions of citizenship, and his independence is well known, and he is cordially esteemed for it, as he is for all the commendable qualities of his sterling and elevated man- hood. The people of his township and the county generally re- gard him as one of their most upright, reliable and representative citizens, and respect him in accordance with this judgment, which is based on intimate knowledge of him and his whole career in all the relations of life.
SIMON B. POOR .- A venerable and highly respected citizen of Van Buren county is Simon B. Poor, who is known from border to border of this particularly favored section and whose career has ever been such as to warrant the trust and confidence of the busi- ness world, for he has ever conducted all transactions according to the strictest principles of honor. He is a native of the state of New York, his birth having occurred on May 5. 1827, and he is the third in a family of eight children, five of whom were sons and three daughters, born to Daniel and Malinda (Ingersoll) Poor. Of this number the subject is the only survivor.
The father was a native of New York and was reared as a me- chanic. He received his education in the common schools and in the Empire state married. His progenitors were worthy citizens, some having been soldiers in the Revolutionary war. In 1846 he severed old associations and came west, his destination being Keeler
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township, Van Buren county. He had previously purchased sixty acres in Cass county, where Dowagiac now stands, the present city of seven thousand then boasting but a few houses and two small stores. He was a Jackson Democrat and always upheld the princi- ples of that party. The lineage of the family is traced to England. Three brothers came to America and one of them was the ancestor of the subject. The subject's mother was a native of New York; educated in the common schools and a member of the Congrega- tional church. Both Father and Mother Poor are interred in the old cemetery at Dowagiac.
Simon B. Poor was reared to young manhood in his native state and received his education in one of the old subscription schools. He well remembers the crude forms and the text books of that day. He came west with his parents by stage. In those primitive times deer were plentiful and he remembers an occasion upon which he saw a herd of nine deer on the Keeler township farm. Hartford was not in existence at that time. The closest market was St. Jo- seph, Michigan. Mr. Poor had taken up the trade of a blacksmith and conducted a shop with his brother in Keeler township. They also had a shop in Hamilton township. The first purchase of land made by him was when he bought from his father sixty acres near Dowagiac and he went in debt for the same, paying, however, one hundred dollars on the house. He lived in a little shack, six or seven feet high and covered with rough boards, through which the rain often leaked, making it unbearable inside. He thought he would like to have a new house, but had no money and so he went to a Mr. Lybrooks in Dowagiac, who had a large store, and stated his case to him. He asked him whether he would sell him material for his house on time. Mr. Lybrooks walked the floor and considered and finally said, "Simon, it's all right. I will sell you what you want and you can pay for it when you can." The subject then visited the owner of the saw mill and made arrangements to have his lumber cut and in a short time the abode was erected. He was deeply in debt, but by the exercise of industry and thrift finally got his head above water.
Mr. Poor was married June 30, 1861, Mrs. Mary E. (Higgins) Williams becoming his wife. To them were born four children, three sons and one daughter, and two of this number are living. Byron W. is a resident of San Antonio, Texas, where he is a con- tractor and builder. He has been successful in life, was educated in the Cassopolis high school; is a member of the Oddfellows fra- ternity, is affiliated with the Theosophical Society; and is a Social- ist in political opinion. He taught for a time in Michigan and was professor of music at Gibbon, Nebraska. The second son, George Harold, resides upon the old homestead with his parents. He was educated in the Decatur schools, graduating from the higher de- partment and is now a practical agriculturist and horticulturist. He married Miss Ada McAllister on March 28, 1905, and they have a young son, Melvin Harold. His wife was born in Van Buren county, March 4, 1880, and is a daughter of Eli and Laura (Young) McAllister, both of her parents being now deceased. Socially Mr. Poor is a member of the Knights of the Maccabees, Tent No. 113,
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and of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, both of Decatur, Michigan.
The wife of the subject is a native of DeKalb, Indiana, where she was born June 18, 1840. She is a daughter of William and Nancy (Berry) Higgins. She was a little girl, six years of age, when her parents came to Cass county and located between Cassop- olis and Dowagiac. She was educated in the common schools and had the pleasure of attending the old log-cabin schoolhouse, where the logs burned in the great fire-place and the pupils sat at a long desk at the end of the building. The seats were made of puncheon, with holes bored through where sticks were inserted for legs. The school was supported by subscription. Mrs. Poor attended schools of this primitive character in both Indiana and Michigan. She had many experiences outside of the imagination of the modern girl. Once upon a time she saw a deer killing a rattlesnake and she has never forgotten it. Both she and her husband in their younger days enjoyed the old time sports and merry-makings, and attended rallys and apple-parings and quiltings. They well remember the great Lincoln rally in 1864, when Mr. Poor made an iron wedge to go in a wagon which was to be drawn in the procession, and some of the "Copperheads" asserted that the wedge split the Union.
Mr. and Mrs. Poor began life as young married people on the little farm near Dowagiac and lived there some years, before they sold out and went to reside in Dowagiae. There the subject worked for P. D. Beckwith, drill and plow-maker. for four or five years. He then came to Van Buren county and purchased one hundred acres in south Hamilton township, and after living there six months went to Cass county. They sold the one hundred aeres and then purchased one hundred and twenty acres in Volina township, Cass county. and there resided five years. He sold that and went to Vo- lina Corners and there lived two years, working at his trade of blacksmith. He then secured one hundred and twenty acres in Penn township and remained there eighteen years. He sold out and bought one hundred and fifty acres of fine land in Hamilton township, his present estate. He and his family removed to this location in 1893 and they now possess one of the finest farms in the township.
Mr. Poor is an independent voter, supporting the man rather than the party. He cast his first presidential vote for Martin Van Buren. Both he and his wife are valiant friends of the public schools. They are Spiritualists and their home has been the scene of many successful seances. Mr. Riley, the well-known medium, is a great friend of the Poors. Both Mr. and Mrs. Poor are connected with the Hamilton Grange.
On June 30, 1911, Mr. and Mrs. Poor celebrated their golden wedding at the Grange Hall and the members of the organization paid them every honor. They are citizens who are held in highest esteem and the record of their useful lives is well worthy of per- petuation in this History of Van Buren County, Michigan.
WILLIAM H. GLEASON .- With all his energies devoted to farm- ing in one form or another from his boyhood, and with steady progress in his struggle for advancement among men since he
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started out in life for himself, all the result of his own industry and ability, William H. Gleason, of Paw Paw township, has fully demonstrated that he is sturdy in spirit, sterling in character and self-reliant in all his undertakings. He has performed all the duties of citizenship, too, with a sole desire for the general wel- fare, and in continued efforts to secure the best possible state of development and improvement in every way for the locality in which he has so long lived and labored.
Mr. Gleason's life began in Byron, Genesee county, New York, on January 18, 1846, and he came to Michigan in 1865, when he was nineteen years old, with his parents, Richard and Sarah (Parish) Gleason, also natives of New York state. On their ar- rival in this state they located on a farm in Paw Paw township, Van Buren county, and there they passed the remainder of their days. They had two children, William H. and his younger sister Ruth, who has been dead a number of years.
The son has never left the home of his parents, but has added to the extent of the homestead until his farm now comprises one hundred acres. For many years he devoted himself to general farming, but he now makes a specialty of grape culture, finding his land, which is located in sections 5 and 8, Paw Paw town- ship, especially well adapted to this line of production. He has studied his industry by reading and reflective observation in order to secure the best results, and the extent and success of his operations prove that the time he has devoted to the study has been well and wisely employed.
On January 25, 1871, Mr. Gleason united himself in marriage with Miss Frances Prater, a daughter of William and Sophia (Salt) Prater, who came to Michigan and became one of the lead- ing farmers of Van Buren county. They were the parents of eleven children, only two of whom are now living, Mrs. Gleason and her older brother George, who is also a resident of Paw Paw township in this county. The children who have died were : William, Susan, James, Maria, Elizabeth, Giles, Julia, Sophia and one who passed away in infancy.
Mr. and Mrs. Gleason have one child, their son Bert, who re- sides in Paw Paw township and is engaged in farming and fruit growing. (See sketch of him on another page of this volume.) Mr. Gleason takes an earnest interest and an active part in local public affairs. His political faith and allegiance are given firmly to the Democratic party, but he has never sought or desired a public office of any kind. He is also energetic and helpful in all undertakings for the improvement of the township and county, of his home and the substantial and enduring welfare of their people. No duty of citizenship has ever been neglected by him, and all who know him esteem him for his fidelity, his sterling worth and his elevated and elevating manhood. In church con- nection he is a Baptist, and while not ostentatious in his church work, he is one of the leading members of the congregation to which he belongs, and one of its main reliances in all its com- mendable projects for the good of the people. The residents of Paw Paw township look upon him as one of their best and most
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useful and representative citizens, and he is entirely worthy of the high regard they have for him.
ENOS E. HAZARD .- A native of the state of New York and of New England parentage, Enos E. Hazard, of Paw Paw township, this county, inherits the traits of a sturdy race and was trained in the industry, thrift and frugality of a section of our country re- nowned for these qualifications for success among its people. He has been alert in accepting his opportunities in life as they have come, and with the energy characteristic of his ancestry has been zealous in making the most of them. While his success has not been striking or spectacular, it has been steady and continued; and while he has not built his fortune to great proportions, he has made a comfortable estate for himself and his family, and has done it all by his own efforts.
Mr. Hazard was born in Chenango county, New York, on October 28, 1838. His father, Charles Hazard, was born in Rhode Island, and his mother, whose maiden name was Fanny Brodrick, was a native of Massachusetts. Their son, E. E. Hazard, was the first born of their six children. Of the others, Dewayne and Sarah are deceased ; Charles lives at Decatur in this county ; George is a resi- dent of Denver, Colorado; and Ella M. is the wife of William Bell, of Manteno, Illinois.
At the age of fifteen E. E. Hazard accompanied his parents and the rest of the family, as it was then, to Illinois, and remained at home helping in the work on the farm until he reached the age of twenty-one. He secured a common, country school education, di- rected specially to preparing him for usefulness and business suc- cess as a farmer, and not looking beyond this. When he was twenty-one he took charge of the home farm in association with one of his brothers, and they cultivated it in partnership for twelve years. At the end of that period his brother retired from the ar- rangement, and from then until 1896 he had sole charge of the farm.
In the year last named he came to Michigan and located in Van Buren county. For four years he farmed land which he rented, then, in 1900, bought the tract of eighty acres in sections 8, 4 and 5 which he now owns and lives on. Here he carries on a general farming industry, raises some cattle and makes a specialty of fruit, which he raises in abundance and fine quality. He gives his per- sonal attention to every department of his business, and applies his best powers to each with steady regularity and commendable intelligence and skill. The result is that he has one of the best farms in the township of its size, and every feature of his work brings him in good returns.
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