USA > Michigan > A history of northern Michigan and its people, Volume II > Part 50
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In November, 1908, Mr. Meads was elected county treasurer, and in the election of November, 1910, he was chosen as his own successor in this office. His adminstration has been conservative, careful and faithful, and he has put forth every effort to bring about economy in the handling of the county funds and resources, while at the same time fostering progress and needed public improvements. Mr. Meads is found arrayed as a stalwart in the local camp of the Republican party and is well fortified in his opinions as to matters of public polity. Prior to his election to his present office he had served as justice of the peace, as treasurer of Custer township, Mason county, and also as a school director. He has identified himself closely with the interests of Mason county and is the owner of a well improved farm in Riverton town- ship, besides real estate in his home town of Scottville. He is affiliated with the lodge and chapter bodies of the Masonic fraternity and also with the adjunct organization, the Order of the Eastern Star, besides which he holds membership in the Scottville lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
In the year 1885 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Meads to Miss Harriet E. Landon, who was born in Barry, Michigan, and who is a daughter of the late William H. Landon, a representative citizen of Mason. Mr. and Mrs. Meads have had six children, namely: Lonis W., Fannie A., M. Josephine, Marguerite, Harriet L. and Curtis L. All of the number are living except Marguerite, who died at the age of fifteen months.
A THURSTON & SON .- It is a pleasure to the publishers of this work to incorporate within the same the history of as highly respected and representative a citizen as Albert Thurston, who in association with his son, has been engaged here in the furniture and undertaking business for more than a decade. In fact, this gentleman's first identification with Clare, Michigan, dates from the year 1898 and in the intervening years, he has in many ways demonstrated the public spirit that makes
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him so good and patriotie a eitizen, never having failed to yield hearty support and co-operation to any measure that has appealed to him as likely to prove conducive to the public good. The elder Mr. Thurston succeeded Mr. O. S. Derby to the present business in the year above mentioned, coming here from Manistee, Michigan, where he had been engaged in the same line.
Albert Thurston was born in Oakland county, Michigan, and the 23rd day of May, 1838. He is a son of Aaron and Orra Thurston, the former of whom was a farmer. At an early day his parents left their previous home near Rochester, New York, and came to the Wolverine state, where they secured land in Oakland county and engaged in agricultural pursuits. The boyhod and youth of the subject was passed amid rural surroundings and he had the usual opportunity of the country boy to learn the secrets of seed time and harvest and engage in their arduous tasks. He attended sehool at Clarkston. There were ten children in the family, Albert being the youngest.
Albert had some thought of following in the paternal footsteps in the matter of a life vocation and he engaged in farming until the year 1864, his land being located in Oakland county. In 1864 he abandoned the great basic industry and removed to Saginaw, where he made his first venture in the furniture and undertaking business. He succeeded, but for various reasons decided upon a change of location after living in Saginaw for fourteen years, and he then went to Manistee, Michigan, where he resided for ten years. In 1898 he came to Clare, where many good things have been his portion and where he enjoys the possession of many loyal friends.
' Mr. Thurston was happily married on the 14th day of February, 1865, the young woman to become his wife being Miss Marianne Allyn, who was born at Palmyra, New York, and who came to Michigan with her parents, Charles and Marianne (Allen) Allyn, who located upon a farm. Their union has been blessed by the birth of the following three sons : Allyn W., who is employed in the office of the Cook County treasurer, having charge of the department of inheritance taxes; Hiram B., a graduate of Oberlin College in Ohio, now assistant treasurer of the college and also interested as a partner in a shoe store and finan- cially interested in a bank in that celebrated college town; and Charles A .. who is one of the firm of A. Thurston & Son. The latter married Miss Nellie Priest, of Northville, Michigan, and they are the parents of two promising sons, named Albert Henry and Russell Allyn.
Mr. Thurston, the father, is one of the most loyal of Republicans, having ever subscribed to the articles of faith of the Grand Old Party. He has received signal proof of the confidence of his fellow citizens by elevation to the office of city treasurer and of justiec of the peace. Both Mr. Thurston and his son, Charles A., are members of the ancient and august Masonic order, and the latter is also affiliated with the Knights of Pythias. In the matter of politieal faith the son has followed in the footsteps of the father, and like him he is interested in the sueeess of good government and the progress of the community in general.
Mr. and Mrs. Thurston have a foster daughter, Lulu Williamson,
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who lived with them as their own child until her marriage to Mr. E. C. Smith, of Midland, Michigan.
CARLTON W. LUCE .- Since 1892 has Carlton W. Luce been general superintendent of the Detroit & Mackinac Railroad, which was former- ly known as the Detroit, Bay City & Alpena Railroad. Mr. Luce main- tains his home and business headquarters at East Tawas, Iosco county, Michigan, where he is recognized as a substantial and prosperous citi- zen. Concerning the railroad of which he is general superintendent, the following brief but interesting history is here incorporated.
The foundation of the Detroit & Mackinac Railroad was laid in the winter of 1878-9, that season having been what is termed an "open" winter. At that time there was no way of transporting logs in this vicinity and as the lumber business had to be carried on several miles of road were built, the rails consisting of maple with strips of iron securely nailed on top. Upon these rails was placed a home-made locomotive, called the "Paddy." In this locomotive the tender was a common boiler and the drive wheels, common car wheels. The engine was constructed and devised by C. D. Hale. In the spring of 1880 Mr. Hale managed to interest the people of Tawas City in the project of extending the above road to the lumber camps on Tawas Bay, a distance of twenty-four miles. Accordingly two locomotives of stand- ard make, weighing eleven tons, were brought into operation, and the road was then called the Lake Huron & Southwestern Railroad. The company was eminently successful in moving logs but the expense in- curred was so great as to involve the firm in bankruptcy. C. H. Pres- cott, of Bay City, a large lumber dealer, had loaned the railroad com- pany a large sum of money with which to purchase the needed mate- rials for construction and when bankruptcy proceedings were in order he, in order to save himself, bought up all the other claims. Under Mr. Prescott's able management the road proved successful and he rechris- . tened it the Tawas City & Bay County Railroad. About this time, in 1882, Alger Smith & Company completed a small road running from Black River south about fifteen miles and that concern purchased the Tawas City & Bay County Road, building a connecting line between Tawas City and the Black River Road, at the same time extending the western terminus of the Preseott road on to the Michigan Central, at Alger. The road was changed to standard gauge and later extended to Alpena, at which time it was called the Detroit, Bay City & Alpena Railroad. The first superintendent of the latter road was Henry ('lark and he was succeeded by J. M. Waterbury. In 1882 a Mr. Honeywell became superintendent and from 1883 to 1892 Milo Eastman was in- enmbent of that position. In 1892 Carlton W. Luce, of this review, succeeded Mr. Eastman and under his able management the road has prospered in all its departments.
Carlton W. Luce was born at Jonesville, Michigan, on the 24th of October, 1853, and he is a son of Harvey W. and Charlotte (Pivis) Luce, the former of whom was born in the state of New York and the latter of whom was a native of Michigan. The father came to Jones- ville, Michigan, about the year 1833. He was a carpenter and cabinet-
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maker by trade and he was identified with those lines of enterprise during the major portion of his active business career. Mr. and Mrs. Harvey W. Luce became the parents of seven children, of whom C. W. Luce was the fifth in order of birth. Mr. Carlton W. Luce was reared to the age of thirteen years on a farm in Ulaski township, Jackson county, to the common schools of which place he is indebted for his early educational training. In October, 1869, he entered the railroad service as water boy on the Peninsular Road, that being now a part of the Detroit, Lansing & Lake Michigan, now a portion of Pere Mar- quette system. Three years later he was promoted to the position of freight brakeman and train baggage master, which he held up to May 5, 1874. For the ensuing six years he was freight conductor and from May 30, 1880, to August 31, 1883, he was passenger conductor on the same road. From September 1, 1883, to September 22, 1889, he was train master on the Detroit, Lansing & Northern Road. On September 1, 1889, he was appointed train master on the Detroit, Bay City & Al- pena Railroad and on September 1, 1892, he became superintendent of the Detroit & Mackinac Railroad, which position he holds at the pres- ent time, in 1911.
Through lifelong experience in railroad work Mr. Luce has become eminently proficient in the various departments of that line of enter- prise and he is well fitted for the important position which he now holds. During his incumbency as superintendent of the Detroit & Mackinac Railroad that line has prospered as never before and it is to-day one of the most important branches in northern Michigan. In politics Mr. Lnce endorses the principles and policies of the Republi- can party and while he has never had time nor ambition for the honors or emoluments of public office of any description, he has always been a staunch advocate of all measures and enterprises advanced for the good of the general welfare. In a fraternal way he is connected with the grand old Masonic order, the Knights of the Maccabees and the Knights of Pythias. He and his family are devout members of the Episcopal church and they are prominent in connection with all phi- lanthropieal movements in East Tawas.
In the year 1879 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Luce to Miss Janet G. Smith, whose birth ocenrred at Detroit, and who was a daughter of Joseph Smith. Mrs. Lnee was a woman of the utmost graciousness and sincerity and at the time of her death, November 27, 1907, she was deeply beloved by scores of warm and devoted friends who now hold her in reverent memory. She is survived by five chil- dren, namely,-Harvey W., Edna I., Beulah, Walter A. and Gertrude.
DR. ARTHUR MARTIN GEROW .- If the man who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before is a public benefactor, and everybody agrees that he is, much more is a man to be accounted one who intro- duces a new industry in a section of the country and leads the way to its large development and liberal addition to the wealth and resources of that section. Dr. Arthur Martin Gerow of Cheboygan has such a record to his credit, and his achievement in the line of his industry are
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worthy of the highest admiration and have received warm praises from all who have knowledge of them.
The story of the doctor's life is interesting, too, from other points of view, and although it must necessarily be briefly told in these pages, even a summary of its leading features will present an example for commen- dation and a source of stimulus and encouragement to struggling young men, and one of gratification to those who have passed the period of con- test with adverse circumstances and are safely anchored in a peaceful harbor of worldly comfort and consequence among their fellow men.
Dr. Gerow was born in Napanee in the province of Ontario, Canada, on March 7, 1845, and is the fourth of the seven children of Peter and Mary (Martin) Gerow, four of whom are living. The father was a na- tive of Ontario and the mother of England. Both have been dead for a number of years. They were farmers in Ontario and passed their lives in modest comfort in their occupation and the full enjoyment of the esteem and good will of all who knew them. The doctor attended the village school near his home during the winter months and worked in a saw mill during the summers until he reached the age of seventeen. He then secured a second grade teacher's certificate and taught school for one year. His earnings in this work were meager, but he was frugal and aspiring, and used the money to provide for his necessities while he pursued a course of special training for teaching. in the Toronto Normal School. He was graduated from this institution in December, 1863, the short time of his attendance showing strongly his proficiency and dili- gence as a student. After receiving his diploma from the normal school he again taught sehool, earning two hundred and fifty dollars the first year and three hundred dollars the second, and passed his vacations in the study of medicine in the offices of Doctors Parker and Bradley in Sterling, Ontario. When he had saved enough money to pay his tui- tion and board he entered the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Kingston, Ontario, where he remained one year. The next year he matriculated in the Buffalo (New York) Medical College, from which he was graduated with the degree of Medical Doctor in 1868. After passing three months in Galena, Illinois, in a vain endeavor to secure enough practice to furnish him a livelihood he sought a more promising field, or what he thought was one. In the autumn of 1868 he located at Cheboygan, being the first physician to settle in that community. He came to the locality with only forty dollars in money, his medicine case and diploma as his stock in trade for the realization of his hopes in life. He found at Cheboygan about two hundred residents, but all so sound and vigorous in bodily health that they had little need of a doctor. As a consequence of these conditions his finances were soon exhausted and he was forced to either seek employment outside of his profession or leave the town. At this juncture he was offered a place as a clerk and salesman in a store, and he determined to take it and perform its duties until he could get money enough to take him to Kansas City, Missouri. His pay was about sixty dollars a month in the store, and his work there gave him acquaintance with the people, so that in a short time he was able to add to his income the receipts from a small but growing practice of medicine. By 1869 he had accumulated enough capital to open the
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first drug store in the village. This was a small affair, but it proved to be a healthy acorn, and from it has grown the sturdy oak of his present prosperity and extensive worldly wealth. His management of the drug store brought him additional practice, and in time this became so ex- tensive that he was compelled to sell the store, which he did in 1883, and give his whole time and attention to his professional work. In the mean- time he had invested all his surplus capital in building lots in the town, and when the financial crash of 1873 came he found himself very much embarassed financially, and at one time faced the probable necessity of letting all his property go for what it would bring. He managed to hold on to it, however, until the dull times passed, and it has steadily grown in value until it is now some of the most desirable and valuable in the city, especially the portions which he has improved with good business houses. He now owns nearly a whole block of stores and buildings de- voted to other than mercantile business, and from this alone he receives a comfortable income. Dr. Gerow's last and most imposing addition to the building improvements in Cheboygan is the Ottawa hotel, named in honor of the Ottawa Indians, which was formally opened to the pub- lice with a splendid banquet on the night of March 15, 1911, under the auspices of the Cheboygan Chamber of Commerce. In the speeches that followed the banquet Dr. Gerow was highly complimented for his enter- prise in giving this fine hostelry to the city, and for his general spirit of progressiveness in using all his means to promote the development and improvement of the community in which his faith is firmly fixed. He was loudly proclaimed as a man of the type that has built all our best and most progressive cities and made American enterprise in municipal development the wonder of the world. It should be recorded that he bore his honors with his characteristic modesty, and in fact, managed to be out of the banquet hall while his praises were being so enthusias- tically sounded by the speakers. Being under the conviction for some years that Cheboygan county was particularly well adapted to apple growing, and being eager to test his conviction in practical proofs, Dr. Gerow passed 1895 and 1896 in California making an exhaustive study of the business. He returned to Cheboygan more firm in his faith than ever in this respect, and at once set about starting the industry on a large scale in this locality. On three hundred acres of land which he owns near the city he planted twenty thousand apple trees in 1897, 1898. 1899 and 1900, and has made additional plantings every year since. He has now the largest apple orchard in Michigan, if not in the world, and his enterprise in starting and developing this mammoth creation has rewarded him handsomely in a financial way and also in increased and intensified regard and esteem among the people of the county, to whose commercial resources and local activities it has added very largely in volume. Recently Dr. Gerow sold portions of his fruit land, and what he now owns embraces two fine orchards, one containing three thousand six hundred and the other two thousand seven hundred trees.
The doctor has been a potential factor in other undertakings of value to the community, also being a director of the First National Bank from its organization, and on May 2, 1911, was elected its vice president. He has been during the past thirty-five years, a member of the school board Vol. II-25
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and of the United States pension board of examiners. He is at this time (1911) president of the Cheboygan Chamber of Commerce and the Cheboygan Business Men's Association.
In political faith and allegiance the doctor is an ardent member of the Republican party, and he is always a hard worker for its success. He has not been ambitious for political office, but in 1885, for the good of the community he consented to serve as president of the village of Cheboygan, and as such rendered the people excellent service. In fra- ternal relations he is a prominent member of the Masonic order, belong- ing to Cheboygan Lodge No. 283, Master Masons; Cheboygan Chapter No. 109, Royal Arch Masons; Inverness Council No. 60, Royal and Select Masters, and Cheboygan Commandery No. 54, Knights Templar. On December 17, 1874, he was joined in marriage with Miss Mary McDon- ald, a native of Ontario and the daughter of John and Amelia McDonald. One child has been born of the union, a son named Allen F. Gerow, who is his father's assistant in his horticultural business and one of the es- teemed young men of the city. The Doctor's interest in the welfare and progress of his profession has never flagged nor become inert, but by constant and reflective study of the best literature he has kept himself abreast with its most advanced thought and discoveries.
HENRY C. MCKINLEY .- The question has been frequently discussed as to which is the mightier the sword or the pen and it is a conceded fact, established by history, that the pen has wrought a greater power over the minds of men than the sword. The sword is mighty because it conquers and establishes peace but that peace is engendered with hate. On the other hand the pen prevents recourse to the sword and it wields an extensive influence that lives long after the writer has suc- cumbed to death. History, poetry, drama, stories of love and pathos, contracts that bind nations, friendly intercourse, wills and documents, which hold inviolate the wishes of the dead, are all the work of the pen. Indeed the wide experience of the world proclaims in unmistak- able terms the great truth that the "Pen is mightier than the sword."
Henry C. Mckinley, the immediate subject of this review, has passed the best years of his life in wielding the mighty pen. For more than a quarter of a century he published the Otsego County Herald, of Gaylord, assuming charge of that paper in 1884, at which time Otsego county was a virgin wilderness. Through the medium of the Herald Mr. McKinley, with his trenchant pen and active mind, was a strong influence in the growth, progress and prosperity of Otsego county. He directed the best years of his life to the upbuilding of the Herald and in making it a power for good in the community.
In the city of Brooklyn, New York, on the 3d of April, 1851, oc- curred the birth of Mr. MeKinley. Ilis father, Henry Jacob Mckinley, was a native of Scotland and his mother was born and raised in the city of New York. The father was a merchant, but when the subject of this review was an infant of but six weeks of age he was stricken with the gold fever and accordingly set out on the long and perilous journey overland to California in search of the magic metal. After accumulating considerable property, however, he siekened and died in
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the city of San Diego. From New York city Mrs. McKinley, with her infant, removed to Wellsville, Allegany county, that state, residing in that place for a period of six years and coming thence to Detroit, Mich- igan, in 1859. At the time of the inception of the Civil war she was a resident of Ann Arbor, Michigan, to the public schools of which place Henry C. is indebted for his preliminary educational training. He lived with an unele at Howell for a number of years and there made himself useful in the office of his uncle, who was an undertaker and a marble dealer. In 1867 Mr. Mckinley returned to New York city and thereafter was at sea for a period of two years, during which time he inade twenty-eight trips between New York and Savannah. For a time he clerked in a drug store on Third Avenue, in New York, and sub- sequently he worked in Bixby's shoe store, at No. 8, Astor Place, op- posite the Astor library and near the Cooper Union Institute. He worked in a looking-glass factory on Pearl street, clerked in a law and real-estate office on Nassau street, drove truck nine months for C. G. Chambers & Company and in various ways became thoroughly familiar with the ins and outs of the great metropolis. Later he spent one winter with relatives at Lock Haven and Williamsport, Pennsylvania, whence he went to Chicago, in the fall of 1872, one year after the great fire. There he was in a doctor's office for three months, at the expiration of which he went down into Ford county, Illinois, where he managed a grocery store for one winter for M. L. Sullivant, the millionaire farmer, who owned and operated an estate of forty-two thousand acres and who employed a force of four hundred men.
In the spring of 1873 Mr. McKinley returned to Howell, Livingston county, Michigan, where he entered upon a three years' apprenticeship at the printer's trade in the office of the Livingston County Republican. He was married in 1875 and in the winter of 1877 he went to Grayling from Traverse City, there taking up a homestead five miles east of the town. He did not take kindly to farming, however, and subsequently worked for about one year in a saw mill. In 1878 he came to Gaylord and secured employment in the office of the Otsego County Herald and later he returned to Grayling, where he taught a district school and managed the Avalanche for one year for Salling, Hanson & Company. In 1878 he made Gaylord his permanent residence and has here resided during the long intervening years to the present time. In 1884 he be- came the owner, through purchase, of the Otsego County Herald, which paper he published with profit to himself and the community for the ensuing twenty-seven years.
In politics Mr. MeKinley accords an uncompromising allegianee to the principles and policies for which the Republican party stands sponsor and it is interesting to note here that his first presidential vote was east for Horace Greeley, in 1872. In a fraternal way Mr. Mc- Kinley is a charter member of the Knights of Pythias and he and his family are devout members of the Baptist church.
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