USA > Michigan > A history of northern Michigan and its people, Volume II > Part 46
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Were it only for his fraternal affiliations Mr. Gaylord would be well known. He is a prominent member of the ancient and august Masonic order, and is entitled to wear the white plume of the Knights Templar. He is also affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. No. 736, of Ludington.
The union of Mr. and Mrs. Gaylord has been blessed by the birth of one danghter, Effie G., who is the wife of Harry V. Huston. They also are residents of Ludington.
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CAPT. BENJAMIN F. OAKES, who is now efficiently filling the office of postmaster of East Tawas, Iosco county, Michigan, is a noble old veteran of the Civil war, in which he served for four years with all of gallantry and faithfulness. He was born in the state of Maine, the date of his nativity being June 22, 1838, and he is a son of Nathan and Martha (Hewey) Oakes, both of whom lived and died in the Old Pine Tree state, where the father was long identified with lumbering pursuits. Captain Oakes was the first in order of birth in a family of four children and he received his educational training in the public schools of his native place, the same including a course in the local high school. After leaving school he became interested in the lumber industry and in 1857, when but nineteen years of age, he became pilot on the Penobscot river.
In 1862, after the dark cloud of Civil war had obscured the national horizon, Captain Oakes became fired with an unquenchable patriotism to defend the Union for which his ancestors had fought and he accord- ingly enlisted as a soldier in Company 1, Eighteenth Maine Volunteer Infantry. This regiment was subsequently transferred into the First Maine Heavy Artillery. From the first Captain Oakes' promotion was sure and rapid; in November, 1862, he was raised from corporal to sergeant ; in February, 1864, he was commissioned second lieutenant ; in April, 1864, first lieutenant and in November, 1864, he was advanced to the rank of captain of his company. The First Maine Heavy Artillery passed through the most trying ordeals and suffered a greater loss than any other regiment in the Union service. At Spott- sylvania were lost five hundred and thirty-five men in killed and wounded; in front of Petersburg the loss was six hundred and four men. Captain Oakes was struck twice by bullets but in both instances he escaped serious injuries, never being incapacitated for service. After a most strenuous military career he was honorably discharged as captain of Company L and was mustered out of service on the 12th of September, 1865. He retains a deep and abiding interest in his old comrades in arms and indicates the same by membership in the Grand Army of the Republic, in which he is past commander of G. K. Warren Post, of which he is now adjutant.
After the close of the war Captain Oakes returned to his old home in Maine, where he resumed his position as river pilot. About the year 1865 he removed to the northern part of Maine, where he was engaged in the mercantile business for a number of years and where he later turned his attention to farming. In 1876 he moved westward to Michigan, locating at East Tawas, where he became associated with the firm of Emry Brothers, extensive lumber operators, he being mana- ger in their absence. He continued in their employ for a period of fourteen years, at the expiration of which he became interested in the insurance business, in which he was engaged for four years. In 1899, under the regime of President MeKinley, he was appointed postmaster of East Tawas and he has continued incumbent of that position, by successive reappointments, during the intervening years to the pres- ent time, in 1911. In politics Captain Oakes accords an uncompromis- ing allegiance to the principles and policies for which the Republican
B.J. Oakes
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party stands sponsor and in East Tawas he is recognized as an essen- tially loyal and progressive citizen and as one who is inch interested in all projects advanced for the general welfare. Although Captain Oakes has attained to the venerable age of seventy-two years, he is still alert and active, his physical and mental powers remaining prac- tically unmarred by the encroachments of old age. He is a man whose straightforward, honorable principles, as combined with an exemplary life, have made an indelible impress upon the hearts of his fellow men, who accord him unalloyed confidence and esteem. In the Scottish Rite branch of the grand old Masonic order he has attained to the thirty-second degree and he is also affiliated with the Knights of Pythias. His religions faith is in harmony with the tenets of the Uni- versalist church.
In Maine, in the year 1869, was recorded the marriage of Captain Oakes to Miss Charlotte K. Valley, who was born and reared in that state and who is now a woman of sixty-one years. To this union were born four children, namely: Louise, who is now the wife of W. B. Murry, and who maintains her home at East Tawas; Herbert K., who is general manager for a fleet of coal and iron carriers on the Great Lakes at Cleveland : Stella M., assistant postmistress, and Frank C., who lives at Onaway.
WILLIAM S. MESICK .- Numbered among the able and essentially rep- resentative members of the bar of northern Michigan is Hon. William S. Mesick, who is engaged in the practice of his profession in the city of Petoskey and who controls a large and important clientage. He has represented the eleventh district of Michigan in congress and made a most admirable record as a member of the national legislature, besides which he has been called upon to serve in other offices of public trust .- preferments effectually indicating the character of the man and the popular confidence reposed in him. He is a man of fine intellectual and professional attainments and is one of the influential citizens of Pe- toskey, where he has maintained his home since 1902.
William S. Mesick was born at Newark, Wayne county, New York, on the 26th of August, 1856, and is a son of Smith and Rebecca (Shum- way) Mesick, both of whom were likewise natives of the old Empire state, where the respective families were founded in an early day. The father was born in Columbia county, New York, in 1831, was a farmer and miller in his native state, and was only twenty-nine years of age at the time of his death, which occurred at Newark, New York, in 1860. His wife, who was born in 1835, was summoned to the life eternal in 1875, and of their three children the subject of this review is the younger of the two surviving, his sister, Alice, being the wife of George E. Smith, of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Smith Mesick was originally an old-line Whig in politics but he united with the Republican party at the time of its organization and supported its cause until his death, only a few years later. Both he and his wife held membership in the Presbyterian church.
To the public schools of the city of Kalamazoo, Michigan, which was then a village and which continued under village government until it became the most populous community under such municipal administra-
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tion in the entire Union, Mr. Mesick is indebted for his early educa- tional discipline, which was supplemented by his availing himself of the advantages of the splendid old University of Michigan, in the law de- partment of which institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1881 and from which he received his well earned degree of Bachelor of Laws. Soon after his graduation Mr. Mesiek came to northern Michi- gan and engaged in the practice of his profession at Mancelona, Antrim county, where he soon proved the wisdom of his choice of vocation and gained a substantial business. He became one of the leading members of the bar of that county and he has long been known as a skillful and versatile trial lawyer and as a counselor of mature judgment and accu- rate knowledge of the science of jurisprudence. In the year in which he established his residence in Mancelona Mr. Mesick was elected prosecut- ing attorney of Antrim county, and through his effective service in this offiee, of which he continued incumbent for one term, he added materially to his professional reputation. Thereafter he continued to give his en- tire attention to his large and substantial practice until 1896, when he was made the candidate on the Republican tieket for representative of the eleventh district of Michigan in the lower house of Congress. He was elected by an appreciable majority, after a spirited canvass of his district, and he served, with much of efficiency and no slight distinction, during the fifty-fifth and fifty-sixth Congresses. He was renominated by his party in 1896, was renominated again in 1897 but failed of election by a single vote.
During his term in Congress Mr. Mesick was a great admirer and became a close personal friend of the late Hon. Thomas B. Reed, of Maine, who was speaker of the house at that time. Mr. Reed assigned Mr. Mesick to the chairmanship of the important election committee, and he was also chairman of the committee on war and war claims at the time when the house voted to appropriate fifty million dollars for the nation's coast defenses. Mr. Mesick voted against this bill, as did also the able speaker of the house, and both were likewise opposed to the Span- ish-American war appropriation. In 1902 the speaker appointed Mr. Mesick chairman of the pension committee, and he also served on other important committees, besides taking active part in the deliberations of the body of which he was a valued member.
In 1900, after his retirement from Congress, for the purpose of secur- ing a broader field of professional activity, Mr. Mesick removed from Mancelona to Petoskey, where he has since continued in active general practice. He controls a large and representative business and has been identified with much important litigation in the various eourts of this section of the state, besides which he has presented numerous causes be- fore the supreme court of the United States. Ile is known as an earnest and effective advocate of the principles and policies for which the Re- publican party stands sponsor and has been a zealous worker in behalf of its cause. He is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and Benevolent and Proteetive Order of Elks, besides which he is identified with other civic organizations of representative order.
In the year 1884 Mr. Mesick wedded Miss Junetta Johnston, who was horn and reared in Michigan and who is a representative of one of the
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sterling pioneer families of this state. Mr. and Mrs. Mesick have two sons,-Richard S., who was graduated in the University of Michigan, as a member of the class of 1911 and who is now assistant manager of the Morgan-Ernest Lumber & Cedar Company, of Cheboygan, this state; and Harry S., who remains at the parental home and is attending the public schools.
ALBERT F. RUCH .- An honored veteran of the Civil war and one of Petoskey's foremost citizens and business men is Albert F. Ruch, who has here maintained his home since 1887. He is engaged in the paint- ing and decorating business and in local matters he is a most import- ant factor, contributing generously to all measures and enterprises ad- vaneed for the good of the general welfare. Although Mr. Ruch has attained to the venerable age of seventy-two years, he is still erect and active and he retains in much of their pristine vigor the splendid mental and physical qualities of his youth.
A native of Pennsylvania, Mr. Ruch was born in Pottsville, Schuyl- kill county, that state, the date of his nativity being the 27th of Sep- tember, 1839. He is a son of Charles and Sarah Ann Ruch, both of whom were likewise natives of the fine old Keystone state of the Union. The father, whose birth occurred in 1817, was summoned to the life eternal in 1901, and the mother, born in 1823, passed to the great be- yond in 1904. To this union were born thirteen children, of whom the subject was the first born and five of whom are living at the present time. In 1845 the father removed, with his family to Fort Wayne, In- diana, afterwards loeating at Columbia City, where he was interested in the livery business and in general merchandising. During the ad- ministration of President Buchanan he was postmaster at Columbia City, where he resided during the residue of his life.
Albert F. Ruch was a child of but six years of age at the time of his parents' removal from Pennsylvania to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and to the public schools of that city he is indebted for his preliminary edu- cational training. As a youth he entered upon an apprenticeship to learn the painter's and decorator's trade. At the time of the inception of the Civil war Mr. Ruch's sympathies were with the north. On the 12th of August, 1862, he gave evidence of intrinsic loyalty to the Union by enlisting for service as a member of Company K, Eighty-eighth In- diana Volunteer Infantry, his term of enlistment to last three years or during the remainder of the war. He was appointed principal musi- cian of the Eighty-eighth regiment and continued to serve in that ca- pacity for a period of eight months, at the expiration of which he was transferred to the Topographical Engineers' Department. in the Army of the Cumberland, as assistant topographical engineer on the staff of Gen. John C. Beatty : also in the same capacity on the staffs of Generals Scribner, Carlin, Palmer, Jeff C. Davis and then to the office of General O. M. Poe on General Sherman's staff at Atlanta. From this office he was detailed to the headquarters' office which was transferred from Atlanta to Chattanooga prior to the evacuation of the former city. In the latter connection he went from headquarters in Chattanooga, Ten- nessee, to Washington, D. C., then down the coast to More Head City. Vol. 11-23
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then inland to Goldsboro, North Carolina, where he was attached to the office of an Adjutant General of the Fourteenth Army Corps, under Colonel A. C. McClurg, of Chicago. When he left the army General John M. Palmer requested Colonel McClurg to write a letter to Colonel Bryant of the Eighty-Eighth Indiana Regiment, for Mr. Ruch's promo- tion. At that time Mr. Ruch was a non-commissioned officer under Colonel McClurg, until the army marched into Washington. At the time of Lee's surrender and after the close of the war in which he had participated so valiantly, Mr. Ruch received his honorable discharge at Washington, and was mustered out of service at Indianapolis, Indiana, on the 24th of June, 1865. Previously, on the 24th of May, 1865, he had been present in Washington at the Grand Review.
When peace had again been established throughout the United States Mr. Ruch returned to his home at Columbia City, Indiana, where he was appointed postmaster. Later he resigned from that position and turned his attention to business affairs. He opened up a drug store at Columbia City, where he also engaged in the decorating business, in which latter connection he handled a full line of wall paper, paints, oils, etc .; he was also interested in the drug and livery business with his father. In the year 1869 he removed to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and thence to Warsaw, that state. At Warsaw he was engaged in a number of different business enterprises until 1887, at which time he came to Petoskey, where he has resided during the long intervening years to the present time. Here he is engaged in the painting and decorating business. In local polities Mr. Ruch maintains an independent attitude, preferring to give his support to men and measures meeting with the approval of his judgment rather than to follow along strictly partisan lines. He was one of the organizers of the Emmet County Real Estate Association, of which important concern he was president in 1908.
Mr. Ruch has been twice married, his first union having been to Miss Josephine Meriam, the ceremony having been performed on the 3d of April, 1866. To this marriage were born two children, both of whom are now deceased. Mrs. Ruch was called to eternal rest in 1881 and subsequently Mr. Ruch was united in wedlock to Miss Clara M. Cas- tetter, who was born in Akron, Ohio. This union has been prolific of one child, Carl, whose birth occurred on the 28th of September, 1883.
Mr. Ruch is also very prominent in fraternal orders being a Master- Mason, a Royal Arch Mason, a Past Thrice Illustrious of the Council, a Past Captain-General and Generalissimo of his Commandery of Knights Templar; a Past President of the United Order of American Mechanics ; Past President of the United Order of Honor; Past President and Treas- urer of the National Union; and a Past Noble Grand of Odd Fellows; also a Pythian Knight and a Maccabee. He and his wife are both con- nected with Beulah Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star, he being a Past Patron and she a Past Treasurer ; she is also a member of the Daugh- ters of the American Revolution. They are both devont members of the Presbyterian church. He retains a deep and abiding interest in his old comrades in arms and signifies the same by membership in Lombard Post No. 52, Grand Army of the Republic, of which he is a Past Com- mander. He is likewise connected with the National Association of
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Civil War Musicians, holding a commission as leading drum-major of the Department of Michigan and is identified with all local organiza- tions of vocal and instrumental music and is noted for his willingness to contribute his time and talent not only for the church and social functions when called upon, but to enhance the interests of music in the different communities in which he resided. In their home community Mr. and Mrs. Ruch are accorded the deepest and most sincere regard of their fellow-citizens and their exemplary lives serve as a lesson and in- centive to the younger generation.
CHARLES M. BEERS .- In LaGrange county, Indiana, on the 14th of November, 1858, occurred the birth of Charles M. Beers. In the fall of 1861, at which time he was three years of age, the family home was established in Grand Traverse county, Michigan. At old Mission, six- teen miles up the bay, he attended school until he was nineteen years old, at which time he became an employe of the Hannah-Lay Mercan- tile Company, continuing with them one year. Thereafter, with the idea of broadening his general educational training, he became a student in Swenburg's Business College, at Grand Rapids, where he pursued a complete commercial course, after completing which he was employed as a clerk on a line of steamships plying between Traverse City and Mackinaw. When twenty-four years of age he began clerking in an hotel at Big Rapids, continuing in that capacity for the ensning four years. In 1887, soon after his marriage, Mr. Beers became bookkeeper and general foreman for William Beitner in his manufacturing estab- lishment at Traverse City, this concern being interested in a large an- nual output of lumber, chair stock, curtain poles, etc. He remained incumbent of this position for a period of ten years, relinquishing it in order to assume the responsibilities of the office of city clerk, to which position he was elected in the spring of 1901.
At Traverse City, on the 31st of August, 1887, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Beers to Miss Laura Raff, who was born and reared in Stark county, Ohio, and who is a daughter of G. W. Raff, present postmaster of Traverse City. Mrs. Beers is a woman of most pleasing personality and one who is deeply beloved by all those who have come within the sphere of her gentle influence. Mr. and Mrs. Beers became the parents of one child, Julius L., whose birth occurred on the 26th of July, 1888.
In his political convictions, Mr. Beers endorses the cause of the Re- publican party, to which his father accorded a stanch allegiance, his grandfather having been a stalwart in the ranks of the Whig party. The only public offices Mr. Beers ever held were those of city clerk and township clerk, the latter of which he held for four years prior to the incorporation of the city. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Independent Order of Foresters and the Knights of Pythias, in the latter of which he holds the rank of colonel in the Uniformed Rank, being on the staff of the brigadier general of the Michigan brigade.
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ALBERT S. PAYNE, M. D .- Engaged in the successful practice of his profession in the city of Manistee, Dr. Payne merits consideration in this publication as one of the representative physicians and surgeons of northern Michigan and as a citizen of determinate public spirit and civic loyalty.
Dr. Payne claims the fine old Buckeye commonwealth as the place of his nativity. He was born at Port Clinton, Ottawa county, Ohio, on the 29th of February, 1868, and is a son of Wilson and Elizabeth (Rhodes) Payne both of whom were natives of Virginia and of English lineage, their marriage having been solemnized at Bellefontaine, Logan county, Ohio. At Port Clinton, that state, were born their five sons and two daughters, all of whom are living except one son who died in infancy, Dr. Payne, of this review, being the youngest of the number. Wilson Payne was born in the beautiful Shenandoah valley of Virginia and was reared to maturity in the historic Old Dominion commonwealth, where he received a common-school education. As a young man he removed to Ohio and numbered himself among the pioneers of Ottawa county, where he bought a tract of heavily timbered land, in what was known as the "Black Swamp." He was thus called upon to endure the full tension of the pioneer epoch and his days were filled with arduous toil and en- deavor, through the medium of which he eventually reclaimed a good farm and attained to a position of prosperity and independence. Both he and his wife continued to reside in Ottawa county until her death, enjoying the unequivocal regard of all who knew them. They were zeal- ous members of the Methodist Episcopal church and in politics the father has been a supporter of the cause of the Republican party from the time of its organization. The mother died January, 1903, aged seventy-six years, her birth having occurred January 24, 1826.
Dr. Albert S. Payne was reared to the sturdy discipline of the home farm and after completing the curriculum of the district schools he en- tered the high school at Port Clinton, in which he was gradnated as a member of the class of 1889. In preparation for the work of his chosen profession he then entered the medieal department of the great Univer- sity of Michigan, in which he completed the prescribed technical course and in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1892, duly received his well earned degree of Doctor of Medicine and coming forth well fortified for the practical work of his profession. In 1892 Dr. Payne came to Manistec county and established himself in practice at Eastlake, where he remained four years. He passed the winter of 1896-7 in New York city, where he completed an effective post-graduate course in the New York post graduate college and in the spring of 1897 he re- turned to Manistee county and located in its metropolis and judicial cen- ter, the city of Manistee, where he has since continued in the active work of his profession and where he has gained distinctive success and pres- tige as a physician and surgcon who keeps in close touch with the ad- vances made in his profession, to the demands of which he subordinates all other interests. His clientage is of representative order and none has a more thorough appreciation of the dignity and responsibility of the vocation to which he is thus devoting himself with all of zeal and earnestness. The Doctor is a member of the Manistee County Medical
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Society, the Michigan State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. He served for one year as city health officer, to which of- fice he was elected in 1902.
In politics Dr. Payne has ever given his allegiance to the men best adapted to the offices in question, and both he and his wife hold mem- bership in the Congregational church. They are valued factors in con- nection with the best social activities of their home city, where their circle of friends is coincident with that of their acquaintances. The Doctor served for five years as a member of the city board of education and has otherwise done all in his power to further the material and so- cial well being of the community. He is affiliated with the local organi- zations of the Knights of Pythias, the Modern Woodmen of America, the Knights of the Modern Maccabees and the Modern Romans.
On the 14th of January, 1897, was solemnized the marriage of Dr. Payne to Mrs. Martha Magoon, who was born in the province of Ontario, Canada, and who was about ten years of age at the time of the family removal to Michigan, where she was reared and educated. She is a daughter of the late John Crawford, who was a native of Scotland, a harnessmaker by vocation and who passed the closing years of his life at Manistee, Michigan, as did also his wife, whose maiden name was C'alderwood. Mrs. Payne was first married to Arthur Magoon, who died in Manistee and who is survived by no children. Dr. and Mrs. Payne have one daughter, Doris.
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