USA > Michigan > A history of northern Michigan and its people, Volume II > Part 49
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In 1890 Mr. Smith married Miss Fannie Cosens, who is a native of Ontario, daughter of Stephen and Isabella Cosens. Her parents are both living, and eight of their ten children, Mrs. Smith being the third in order of birth. Mr. and Mrs. Smith have two daughters, Ragma and Va.
W. R. COATS, the hydraulic, sanitary and power development en- gineer of Grand Rapids, Michigan, has attained wide reputation, as well as the gratitude of thousands, for the remarkable part which he has taken in the work of obtaining and maintaining supplies of pure water to scores of American communities. His standing is sueh, in this engineering and philanthropie specialty, that his services have been utilized in the old-world and the results of his skill aeross the ocean have served to give him an international name.
Mr. Coats was born in Bedford, twelve miles from Cleveland, Ohio, his father being a farmer and a saw-mill proprietor; a man of strong practical abilities, but of limited education. The elder man, however,
Samuelit Somich.
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showed his breadth of mental view by giving to his children those mental advantages which had been denied him, and which he had the honesty to admit had been a drawback to him in more ways than one. The son, W. R. Coats, received a thorough preliminary education and four years and a half of college discipline; in those days, as he says, "a college course meant business, not baseball, football, hazing, ete." As at present organized and conducted, he believes that the so called higher institutions of learning do vastly more harin than good by turning upon the world an army of incompetents too proud to do the practical things which society demands. "Our primary school sys- tem," he adds, "is undoubtedly the best of all the world, and the student who has passed through the primary grades to high school graduation is equipped with all the education he or she can possibly use in any of the ordinary avocations of life. If the one in twenty possesses a special natural aptitude for the high learned professions, he should pave his own way after high school graduation, without further cost to the tax payer. As for my own life, my profession calls for as high an education as perhaps any of the professions; yet I be- lieve that I sadly missed it by taking a college course. Had I gone directly into the field of my practical work after my academic grad- uation, it would have been far better, for I should have gained an hun- dred-fold more useful knowledge in this practical field during those four and a half years than I gained in college; so that I regard those college years as worse than lost time."
But Mr. Coats was a practical man. At the elose of his college course he resumed farming on the home place, continued it with sue- eess for twelve years, and then became a citizen of Kalamazoo and a railway engineer and builder. Fate seemed to have deereed that he should not become immersed in that specialty; for, during one of his absenees from home, he was nominated as a village trustee and, mmel to his surprise and not to his entire pleasure, was subsequently elected. Ile. was sent into offiee with a large majority, was persuaded that it was his duty to serve, and in the organization of the new eouneil was made chairman of the committee of fire and water; thus giving him full control of the municipal publie water system. Three years before the Holly system had been installed, through political seheming and favoritism, and Mr. Coats' election in April, 1871, was generally con- sidered a rebuke to the "gang who engineered the Holly business." The village's source of water supply was Axtell ereek, which took all the drainage of the southwest portion of Kalamazoo, and all the sew- age direct from the State Asylum for the Insane above the pumping station intake. Before the first meeting of the new eouneil the Board of Health served notice upon him forbidding the further use of this water supply for domestie purposes; and it was sharply up to Mr. Coats to provide a different and a better supply.
The result is best told in Mr. Coats' own words: "At an average depth of about fifteen feet the Kalamazoo valley is underlaid with a porous sand and gravel, water-bearing drift. All the private wells of the village-at that time simply dug, open and curbed affairs-took their supply from this drift, furnishing a clear, cold water, which
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everybody thought was ideally pure. This was before the day of tube wells. I at onee began an investigation with a view to obtaining a dif- ferent and a better water supply. I first sent away for analysis, sam- ples of water from the pumping station intake, from the river and from several of these 'ideal' private wells, in the meantime pursuing my investigation for the new and better supply. I soon became con- vinced this underlying, water-bearing drift would afford an ample supply of the best of water, and I at onee made plans for a cireular caisson twenty-four feet in diameter, to be sunk to the depth of thirty feet into the stratum mentioned, the supply thus being drawn from the base of the drift where it was the purest. Through this arrangement I estimated that we would get one million gallons every twenty-four hours, and reported accordingly, with plans and estimates for the work. Before adopting them, the council thought best that I should submit them to Engineer Chesbro, of Chicago, who had just completed the first lake tunnel for the Chicago publie water system, and was consid- ered at the head of the hydranlie engineering profession. I therefore went to him with my plans, only to meet with ridieule. 'Nonsense, ridiculous, preposterous,' exelaims this old engineer, 'to expect to get water enough from a well in the ground to supply a city of eight thousand people !'
"Naturally it would be thought that such a verdict from such a vet- eran engineer would have crushed a young upstart like myself (at that time) ; but it in no wise shook my faith. Still I was aware that to let the council know at once the result of my visit to Mr. Chesbro would be fatal to my well project. So the moment that body was called to order 1 sprang to my feet and said: 'Mr. President and gentlemen, I will guarantee the engineering success of this work, and that it shall not cost in excess of ten thousand dollars.' After a few moments of still surprise the chairman of the finance committee replied : 'Mr. President and gentlemen, I heartily approve this work but I do not see how we can add ten thousand dollars to the tax levy of the current year.' By this time my whole heart was in this work, and I at once sprang to my feet with. 'Mr. President and gentlemen, I will pay one-half this cost myself;' and the eouneil at once passed a resolution authorizing me to proceed with the work.
"I at onee chose the site for the big well. and proceeded to make boring tests to determine the strata conditions. One test tube had been sunk which penetrated the water strata to the depth of thirty feet, with favorable results; about forty feet away another test tube had been started and had reached the water, when the outside analytic reports came in, and I was astounded to find that the water of the private wells was more dangerously impure than that of foul Axtell ereek. At first I was discouraged, deeming it fatal to my big well projeet. But right here something prompted me to have the waters from these two test tubes sent away for analysis. In due time the reports came in showing that the water from the deep tube showed not the slightest traee of organic impurity, while the water taken from the shallow tube was similar to the impure waters of the private wells. This was simply a revelation, and at onee eonvineed me (and all subsequent investiga-
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tions have sustained my conclusion) that it was a fixed natural law that organic impurities penetrate to but slight depth below the static level of the ground water. One of the highest authorities on water supply of those days declared that 'this was the greatest discovery of the age, and meant better health and longer life for all future gen- erations.' As I had discovered how easy it was to obtain pure water in all habitable parts of the globe, I felt it to be my sacred duty to devote the rest of my life to the dissemination of this knowledge; and I have done this all these subsequent forty years."
Mr. Coats far more than fulfilled his contract with the village and people of Kalamazoo, applying to the work five thousand dollars of his private means before drawing upon the public fund, and later adding fifteen hundred dollars more of his own money; not only this, but when the great municipal well was tested it produced almost five mil- lion gallons daily of the purest water ever known to any city down to that time; and the city of Kalamazoo today, with forty thousand in- habitants, requires only one-half the yield from this first municipal ground-water supply in America. Now there are about eight thousand such supplies. After the initial success of this great work at Kalamazoo, Mr. Coats' services were in wide and constant demand for many years, his time and abilities being solely devoted to the work of establishing and perfecting municipal water systems. During this period, in the prosecution of his investigations and engineering projects, he traveled over two million miles and founded or developed one hundred and eleven public water systems of this nature. In 1884 he was even called to the great Russian city of Moscow, where he laid the groundwork of a mod- ern water system for that wonderful "white mother" the old capital of the Russian empire.
In April, 1889, Ypsilanti called upon Mr. Coats for relief, and as the city gave him an absolutely free hand in his work he gave her a splendid water supply and service; a street main distribution coexten- sive with the corporate limits-something never before or since accom- plished; a fire protection service so thorough as to render the city vir- tually immune from serious fire loss; and a sanitary service beyond all price or estimate. The gain to the people of that city, in insurance alone, equals ten per cent yearly on the entire cost of the system.
Four years ago Mr. Coats spent a month in Ypsilanti, and even after the lapse of twenty years its citizens have a deep sense of gratitude for what he accomplished for the city; especially in the priceless consid- eration of the saving of human life. As a public benefactor he was given a continuous ovation, and private testimonials to his skill and faith- fulness were countless. One day a gentleman on the street grasped his hand and said: "Mr. Coats. I am the heaviest tax-payer in Ypsilanti. and I wish I could vote this minute for the city to pay you twenty-five thousand dollars as a testimonial for your splendid work." The city health officer standing near added : "Yes, but a million dollars would be nearer right." Then turning to Mr. Coats and addressing him direct : "Mr. Coats there are hundreds of people walking these streets every day who would have been in their graves but for you. Before you gave us these works we always had typhoid and malarial fevers, often in
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epidemic form, and our death rate was 16.5. During the past fifteen years there has not been a vestige of these diseases in Ypsilanti, and our death rate is now down to 7.9. In other words, our people of this generation are blessed with far better health and happiness and the rich promise of two-fold longer life than former generations; and we owe it all to you."
It is little wonder that Mr. Coats has taken so much pride in his work as an engineer, and often feels that he has been directed into special channels by a good overruling Providence. Of late years he has largely withdrawn from public enterprises, but still has many calls upon his time as a consulting engineer, and otherwise is never weary of devoting himself to private good.
MICHIGAN, MY MICHIGAN
(Descriptive and Reminiscent.) By W. R. Coats
"The state of Michigan in the wealth and wide variety of its nat- ural resources stands at the very head of the procession in America's United States; and of all sections of the entire world is best pro- vided with every requisite for self-support and independent existence. Its climatic and soil resources; its mineral and timber wealth; its in- ternal and external transportation facilities-everything measures up to the most exalted altitude. True, our timber wealth has been drawn upon with wicked wastefullness, but it is not yet too late for conserva- tion and reclamation. Our state covers an area of 57,890 square miles, over sixty millions of acres of fertile soil; nearly equal in area to all six of the New England states, and four fold more capable in soil pro- duction and in mineral and timber wealth.
"The writer can hardly claim Michigan as his native state, as he was born in Ohio two years before Michigan became a state, but having passed fifty-eight years of his life in the state and fully participated in its marvellous development, he has come to feel very like an original Michigander.
"When I came to Michigan the greater part of the state was a howling wilderness filled with wild animals and wilder Indians. There were then only 397,000 white people in the state, and these, nearly all, plain hard working people as was essential to the subdning of the wil- derness, and paving the way for the advent of gentler hands and more cultured and refined minds. Under the stress of these dominant ele- ments our proud state has risen through the last seven decades from a population of only one-third of a million of crude pioneers to the lofty altitude of nearly three million of high grade, finished American citi- zens. Our railway mileage has increased fifty fold and our material wealth in still greater ratio, while morally, educationally and socially our advance has been still more marked.
"It will perhaps be best for me to hark back to the beginning of my Michigan career and trace it consecutively along down to the present time, and thus spread out the whole picture before the reader. In Sep- tember, 1852, my father gave permission for my first long flight from my childhood home in Bedford, Ohio, in a trip through the lakes, rivers
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and straits from Cleveland, Ohio, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, near which I was to spend the winter with an older married sister, who was living there in the Wisconsin wilderness. I started out from Cleveland on the steamship 'Wisconsin' on September 26, 1852. As I went on the boat and through its gaudy saloons I stared in wide eyed wonder; it seemed like a dream-land palace to me; but we had not been long under way before these fairy-land dreams, all the romance and about everything else, was taken out of me by a violent fit of sea-sickness, so that after this I was decidedly 'off my feed' during the remainder of the voyage. There was a full band of musicians aboard that played on the upper deck when approaching a stopping place, in the saloon at dining hours, and at dances each evening.
"At Mackinac Island I saw my first wild Indian. The government then maintained a garrisoned fort here, and at this time several thou- sand Indians from the northern Michigan tribes were gathered there to receive their annual allotment ; the island swarmed with them, and their canoes were thickly drawn up along the shore of the straits as far as the eye could reach. Next day we called briefly at St. James, the chief port of the Beaver Island group. These islands lie about forty miles off the main land, northwest of the present city of Charlevoix and are now a part of Charlevoix county. We did not tarry long, for everything was red hot there. Down to the previous day, September 28, 1852, the Mormons were dominant in the islands under the rule of 'King Strang,' when the gentiles rose, killed King Strang and took the government into their own hands.
"We next stopped at Milwaukee, then a city of about 30,000 in- habitants, and a close rival of Chicago. Down to the present time Mil- waukee has increased over twelve-fold and now has 374,000 inhabitants, while Chicago has increased sixty-fold, to 2,200,000 inhabitants. There was not a foot of railway in Wisconsin at that time, and I had to go from Milwaukee to my sister's in the country by stage. My appetite was sharply returning after my long fast and I was watching out for something to appease my hunger. Soon our stage stopped at a sort of wayside beer garden, and I found some pretzels and some large round balls that were called some kind of foreign cheese. I did not stand upon ceremony but ravenously bit into the cheese, and oh my! Never before was I up against such a vile nasty proposition. Even after the lapse of all these fifty-nine long years, I sometimes still fancy that I detect the vile odor of that cheese upon my fingers.
"Early the following spring I returned to my Ohio home, soon after which father sold out the old home, and with his family came to Michigan, settling near Grand Rapids, which was then only a small village with less than two percent of her present population. There were no railways in those days, except in the southern part of the state, where the Michigan Central was in operation from Detroit to New Buffalo, on the west shore of the state; and a portion of its track was of strap rails.
"We came by rail from Cleveland to Kalamazoo, and from Kalama- zoo to Grand Rapids by teams. We had to spend one night in Kalama- zoo and we put up at the famous old .Kalamazoo House,' then an old
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wooden affair. Perhaps an incident of that memorable night is worthy of place here. It will certainly show the enterprise of some of the Michigan animal-life of those early days, and will prove the record bed- bug story. The hotel was crowded that night and three young men from Cleveland, one a newspaper reporter, had to occupy one room and one bed. The room was large, the floor bare, and the bed a four-post wooden rail and cord affair, mounted with large straw and feather ticks. Tallow dips were the illuminants of those days, and when our boys were shown to their room, they quickly disrobed, and crawled into the bed; but before sleep came it became evident that there were other occupants of the bed and the boys lighted up to investigate. They found the bed swarming with bugs. 'Great Scott,' cries the boys, 'we can never stand this.' After a little study one of them cries out, 'I have it boys, you clear the floor, clean out the bugs, and take the quilts and pillows and make a bed on the floor, in the middle of the room, and I will go out and get a bucket of tar.' All this was quickly done and a circle of tar drawn on the floor around the bed and the boys crawled in again, leaving the candle alight to see what the bugs would do. Soon as it became quiet, the bugs began to show up, but after trying the tar ridge all around and finding no opening, they all gathered on one side of the room, apparently under the lead of a gray headed veteran and seemed to be holding a sort of council. Soon the veteran started up the side wall of the room with the whole mass following. Upon reaching the ceiling, they crawled out to the center of the room and all let go and dropped down on the boys below. 'Holy Moses,' cries the boys, spring- ing up, 'doesn't this beat the world ? What can we do now?' But soon they concluded to put a corresponding ring of tar up on the ceiling (surely that will fix it) ; and this they proceeded to do, the veteran bug leader watching curiously from below. After the work was done, the boys went to bed again. Soon the old bug leader, choosing a few of his followers, went up the wall again and out to the tar ring on the ceiling. Examining it all around and finding no opening, the old fellow ordered his followers to let go and observing that they fell outside the breast works below, the old fellow came down in disgust and again all came to- gether apparently for further council. Soon the old veteran started for the old bed in the corner, followed by the entire mass, and mounting the straw tick, each bug pulled out a long straw and started for the boys again. Reaching the tar ridge each bug pushed his straw across and had a safe bridge over and all swarmed over after the boys again. 'Hell'n Blazes, boys! Isn't this the limit? We will have to give it up. The Kalamazoo bed-bug is too much for us.'
"Next morning the reporter wrote up the matter for his paper under the heading, 'The Pioneer Bed-Bug,' finishing with this poetic refrain from a fancy leaf of natural history.
" 'The Elephant comes from China, The Kangaroo from Spain, The Bed Bug comes from Kalamazoo, But he gets there just the same.'
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"Well we teamed it from Kalamazoo to Grand Rapids, and on Octo- ber 15, 1853, settled in our new home in Byron, twelve miles from Grand Rapids; and Michigan has ever since been my home. My work as a hy- draulie and sanitary engineer has made it necessary to keep in close touch with all parts of the state; and this has afforded excellent oppor- tunity for watching the trend of events, and keeping near the head of the moving procession.
"The advance of this northern part of the state has been especially noticeable. Whilst I first found it a howling wilderness, filled with In- dians and wild animals, now these are gone. The wilderness has been conquered and turned into cultivated farms. Every county has its pub- lic buildings and railway transport facilities; every township its legal organization ; every school district its active schools; and every city and village its graded schools, colleges or universities, and all the land its daily rural mail delivery, telephones, and to a large extent interurban railway facilities; thriving cities and villages abound. In a word a high grade of civilization has taken the place of the semi-barbarous conditions of but little more than a half century ago. The pure atmosphere of our liberal institutions has proven an irresistible attraction for the oppressed and down-trodden of all nations; and still further, from a sanitary point of view, the atmosphere and the natural scenic beauties of this Northern Michigan proves a restful haven and recuperative point for the invalids of all sections, so that tens of thousands of resorters swarm here every season to pass the summer months.
"Of course the southern part of the state being much longer settled, its people are more highly cultured and refined; but with her greatly superior natural resources, especially in the great staples of iron, copper and timber, Northern Michigan can maintain a swifter pace in the in- dustrial race, and it is only a question of time when she will surpass southern Michigan in all the essential elements of industrial, commercial and social life.
CARL F. MEADS .- When it is stated that Mr. Meads is incumbent of the responsible office of treasurer of Mason county and that he is giving a most effective and satisfactory administration of the fiscal affairs of the county, adequate evidence is incidentally offered as to the con- fidence and esteem reposed in him in the community. As one of the representative citizens of Scottville and Mason county he is well en- titled to recognition in this publication.
Carl F. Meads takes definite satisfaction and pride in reverting to the state of Michigan as the place of his nativity, with whose history the family name has been identified for more than half a century, while the association in the maternal lines has been of even longer duration. Mr. Meads was born in Hillsdale county, Michigan, on the 22d of De- cember, 1859, and is a son of Dr. Mordecai L. and Sarah L. (Haynes) Meads, the former of whom was born at York, Pennsylvania, and the latter in Hillsdale county, Michigan, where her parents established their home in the early pioneer days. Dr. Meads was reared to ma- turity in the old Keystone state and came to Michigan in 1855. He was graduated in the medical department of the University of Michi-
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gan and was engaged in the active practice of his profession from 1858 until 1891. The greater part of his professional work was in Jackson and Eaton counties, this state, and he passed the closing years of his life at Olivet, in the latter county, where he died in 1891, secure in the affectionate regard of all who knew him. His devoted wife lives in Hanover, Jackson county, Michigan. They became the parents of three sons and three daughters, all of whom are living, and of the number the subject of this review is the eldest.
Carl F. Meads passed his boyhood and youth in the attractive vil- lage of Olivet, Eaton county, and after duly availing himself of the advantages of the public schools he continued his higher studies in Olivet College. 'At Olivet he learned the pharmaceutical business, and there he was identified with the retail drug and general merchandise business until 1892, when he removed to Mason county and established his home in the village of Scottville, where he has sinee been success- fully engaged in the drug business, though his official duties have re- quired his presence in Ludington, the county-seat, during the time of his service in the position of county treasurer.
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