USA > Michigan > A history of the northern peninsula of Michigan and its people; its mining, lumber and agricultural industries, Volume III > Part 46
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Born and reared in New York state, Amos Lane migrated to the territory of Indiana in 1808. He was a man of ability, well educated, and soon applied for admission to the bar, but was refused on account, it was said, of his friendship for Thomas Jefferson. Crossing the river into Kentucky, he was there admitted to the bar, and subsequently be- gan the practice of his profession. Returning to Lawrenceburg in 1814, he was then admitted to the Indiana bar, and became very successful as a lawyer. He was prominent in public affairs, being a member of the first state legislature and its speaker, and subsequently being elected to congress, both in 1832 and in 1834. He passed to the life beyond Sep- tember 2, 1849, aged seventy-one years. Among the children that he reared was General James Lane, of Kansas.
George P. and Ann (Lane) Buell reared the following children, namely : Salmon A., a venerable man of eighty-five years, resides in Minneapolis; George P., who died in 1883 at Nashville, Tennessee, served in the Civil war as lieutenant colonel of the Fifty-eighth Indiana Vol- unteer Infantry, and at the close of the war was commissioned colonel of the Fifteenth Regiment, Regular Army, and breveted brigadier gen- eral; John Lane, the special subject of this sketch; Joana; Ann, a nun, belonging to the Sisters of Providence, of Indiana, and known as Sister Cecilia; and Julius, who entered the army as lieutenant of the Colorado Rangers, died from the effects of wounds received in an engagement at Fort Union.
Having completed his early studies in the public schools of Law- renceburg, Indiana, John Lane Buell took a scientific course at the Norwich Military Institute in Norwich, Vermont, which he attended two years. Going to Kansas in the fall of 1857, he spent a year in Leaven- worth, and on October 20, 1858, was one of a small band of venturesome youths that started overland for Colorado, being the first to make the trip from that place. On December 20, 1858, after a tedious journey
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of two months, the company arrived at Cherry Creek, the site of the present beautiful city of Denver. There were no buildings there, but in what is now West Denver but then called Auraria, there were two buildings, one of which was occupied by Dick Whooten, an Indian trader. The company finally settled on the Platte river, six miles above the present site of Denver, and soon conceived the project of platting the city of Denver. Having been so unfortunate as to freeze his feet, Mr. Buell was unable to attend the meeting of the projectors, and thus lost his interest in the town site. In 1859, however, he surveyed and platted the present city of Boulder, and in the winter of 1859 and 1860 worked at Central City, Colorado. Visiting the present site of Leadville in the spring of 1860, he was there engaged in mining for six months. In the fall of 1860, with thirty-four companions, he went by way of Puebla Taos to the valley of the Rio Grande, thence down the valley to Mesilla, New Mexico, and from there to the Pine Altos mines, where he was employed a few months. In the spring of 1861 Mr. Buell started for the Gulf of Mexico, going via El Paso and San Antonio to Fort Davis.
By this time Texas had seceded, and General Twiggs had surren- dered the federal troops. Traveling by night in order to escape, Mr. Buell finally reached the Gulf and secured passage on a vessel used in transporting paroled soldiers, and on May 2, 1861, landed in New York. He immediately entered the commissary department as clerk, and in August, 1861, was appointed second lieutenant in the Fourth United States Infantry and for a time was stationed at Fort Columbus, New York Harbor. Subsequently given charge of the North Carolina pris- oners, he took them to Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, where he was also given charge of the state prisoners of Maryland, having the care of Mason and Slidell while they were at the fort, and when they were re- leased, placing them aboard the British man-of-war. Mr. Buell re- mained at Fort Warren three months, and then went to Washington, where he was soon appointed regimental quartermaster and commissary. During Mcclellan's advance, he had charge of the baggage and supply train of the Third Brigade. After reaching Harrison's Landing he joined his command and took part in the second battle at Bull Run, and at Antietam had charge of the second company of skirmishers which carried the stone bridge across the creek on September 16, 1862, and the following day Mr. Buell had command of the two companies on the right of the line of eight companies that were sent across Antietam creek to cover batteries operating in support of General Burnside, who was making a desperate charge on the left wing of Mcclellan's army. The officer in charge of the land skirmishers made the fatal mistake of marching them up to within one hundred yards of the rebel breast- works on the Sharpsburg pike, and before the error could be corrected he had lost thirteen of his twenty-seven men forming the company on the right, they being on elevated ground and exposed to the rebel fire.
His father being ill and imploring him to come home and take charge of his business affairs, Mr. Buell resigned from the army after the battle of Antietam and returned to Lawrenceburg, Indiana. He subsequently served as aide-de-camp to General John Love, who, in command of the Indiana militia, operated against the forces of John Morgan, the daring rebel raider. Entering Harvard College in 1863, Mr. Buell studied law for six months and then returned to Lawrence- burg, where he was engaged in farming until August, 1866.
At that time, on account of ill health. Mr. Buell decided to try an entire change of climate. He came to Menominee, Michigan, and in
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1867 put the machinery into the Jones mill on the Bay shore, and for two years operated the mill, in the meantime carrying on general farm- ing, publishing the Menimonee Journal, and as opportunity occurred, practicing law.
In 1871 Mr. Buell paid his first visit to the section known as the Menominee Range, and on his second visit, in May, 1873, commenced exploring and laid bare the first merchantable iron ore ever discovered on the range, finding it in the southeast quarter of section thirty-four, township forty north, range thirty, and naming it the Quinnesec Mine. The same year Mr. Buell took up a homestead claim in the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of section three, township thirty-nine north, range thirty, and in 1876 he platted the village of Quinnesec, which was the terminus of the railway from 1877 until 1880.
Since coming to the Upper Peninsula Mr. Buell has been deeply in- terested in everything pertaining to its development and advancement, and has been both prominent and influential in public affairs. Elected to the state legislature in 1872, he became an active member of that body, and had the distinction of introducing the first ten-hour labor bill ever submitted to the legislature. He also introduced the first log lien bill, which was substituted by a senate bill, and likewise introduced a bill for the construction of the Marquette and Mackinaw Railroad, but it was defeated on account of the prejudice against land grants. He made arrangements with the railway company for the first excursion of the legislators and state officers to the Upper Peninsula. In 1876 Mr. Buell built the first wagon road made between Twin Falls and "New York Farm," and superintended the construction of the iron bridges at Twin Falls and at Iron Mountain.
On December 31, 1863, Mr. Buell married Ruth B. Ludlow, who was born in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, a daughter of Stephen Ludlow. Her grandfather, John Ludlow, came to the Northwestern Territory in 1810, locating in what was afterwards Hamilton county, and served as the first sheriff of that county. Stephen Ludlow was born May 5, 1790, in Morris county, New Jersey, and was subsequently a pioneer settler of Lawrenceburg, Indiana, where he was engaged in mercantile pursuits for many years. In 1820 he was one of the commissioners appointed by the legislature to select four sections of land granted by the United States as a site for the capital. The commission met in June, 1820, and chose the present site at Indianapolis. At the age of seventy years, Mr. Ludlow accepted the position of assistant United States surveyor, and was active in the work for several years. He spent his last days in Lawrenceburg, dying at a venerable age. He married Ann Porter, a daughter of John Porter. Mr. Buell was made a Mason at Lawrence- burg, Indiana, October 16, 1856, and is now a member of Norway Lodge, No. 753, F. & A. M.
FRANK J. EATON .- One of the popular and progressive business men of the Upper Peninsula is Frank J. Eaton, who is general super- intendent of the three well equipped sole leather plants of the Ameri- can Hide and Leather Company, and who is also vice-president of the Peoples' State Bank of Munising, which city with its fine harbor and thriving industries, is one of the important municipalities of northern Michigan.
Mr. Eaton was born in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on the 25th of June, 1878, and is a son of Barney A. and Catherine (Quen- tin) Eaton, the former of whom was born in Milwaukee county, Wis- consin, and the latter in Germany. They now reside at Cudahy, a
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thriving industrial town of Wisconsin, and the father is one of its most honored and influential citizens, being at the present time mayor of his home city and an ex-member of the state senate. He has been an influential factor in public affairs in Wisconsin for many years and has served as a member of its legislature for more than a decade. He is a stanch Republican in his political proclivities and is identified with various fraternal and civic organizations of a representative character. Of the six children five are now living and the subject of this sketch is the eldest child. Mr. Eaton, Sr., is engaged in the real estate business and is also the owner of fine farming properties in his home county.
Frank J. Eaton is indebted to the public schools of the city of Milwaukee for his early educational training, which included a course in the high school, and he then entered the University of Wisconsin, in the city of Madison, from which fine institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1904, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. After leaving the University he assumed the position of chemist for the Pfister & Vogel Leather Company, of Milwaukee, and there gained practical experience in the tanning of sole and harness leathers. He was finally made assistant superintendent of the plant and held this position until 1907, when he went to Manistee, Michigan, and became general superintendent of the plant of the American Hide & Leather Company. This incumbency he retained until April, 1909, when he took up his residence in Munising, where he assumed the general superintendence of the local plant of the Munising Leather Company, besides which he has charge of the plants at Manistee, this state, and Merrill, Wisconsin. The concern with which he is thus identified rep- resents one of the important industrial enterprises of the Upper Penin- sula and he is known as a capable executive and as a broad-minded and progressive business man. In 1910 he became one of the organizers of the Peoples' State Bank of Munising and he has been vice president of the same from the time of its organization.
In politics Mr. Eaton is found aligned as a stalwart supporter of the cause of the Republican party and in the time-honored Masonic fra- ternity he has attained to the thirty-second degree of the Ancient Ac- cepted Scottish Rite, in which his affiliation is with the Wisconsin Sovereign Consistory, the Sublime Princes of the Royal Secret, in the city of Milwaukee. There also he is identified with Tripoli Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and in the York Rite of the fraternity his affiliations are still retained in the city of Milwaukee, where he holds membership in Damascus Lodge, No. 290, Free & Accepted Masons; Calumet Chapter, No. 73, Royal Arch Ma- sons; Wisconsin Council, No. 1, Royal & Select Masters; and Ivanhoe Commandery, No. 24, Knights Templar. He is also identified with the Alpha Chi Sigma College fraternity and his religious faith is that of the Presbyterian church. Mr. Eaton is a bachelor.
CAREY W. DUNTON .- Established in the successful practice of his profession in the city of Manistique, Schoolcraft county, Mr. Dunton merits recognition in this work by reason of the fact that he not only holds prestige as one of the representative members of the bar of the Upper Peninsula of his native state but is also a citizen who stands for conservatism in both business and civic matters, and maintains the confidence of his fellow citizens by the safe and sane ideas of which he is the embodiment.
Mr. Dunton was born at Mattawan, Van Buren county, Michigan,
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a village located twelve miles southwest of the city of Kalamazoo, on the 25th of June, 1862, and is a son of Rev. Alfred A. and Margaret (Cummins) Dunton, both of whom were representatives of families early founded in Michigan, the original representatives of the Dunton family having settled at Goguac Prairie, Calhoun county, this state, in 1836, about one year prior to the admission of Michigan to the Union. Rev. Alfred A. Dunton was a clergyman of the Methodist Episcopal church and long years of faithful effort in the ministry are to be recorded in connection with his active career. He passed the closing years of his life at Battle Creek, Michigan, and his wife died at Hillsdale, Michigan.
Carey W. Dunton is indebted to the public schools of the lower peninsula of Michigan for his early educational discipline, which was supplemented by a thorough course in Hillsdale College, at Hillsdale, this state, in which institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1885 and from which he received his degree of Bachelor of Arts. He then began the study of law under the preceptorship of an able member of the bar of Hillsdale, and in 1887 he was duly ad- mitted to practice, upon examination before the circuit court. In the same year he initiated the work of his chosen profession at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, where he remained three years, at the expiration of which he removed to Manistique, where he has followed the work of his chosen vocation during the long intervening period of twenty years. Thus his entire professional career has been identified with the Upper Peninsula, and his precedence as an advocate and counselor of marked ability represents the direct result of his close application, careful and discriminating labors and strong technical ability. He is known as a specially versatile and resourceful trial lawyer and has been identified with most of the important litigation in the courts of Schoolcraft and adjacent counties within the past two decades. He served a number of years as prosecuting attorney of Schoolcraft county and at various times and for varying intervals he has been city attorney of Manistique. He has shown a lively interest in all that has touched the material and civic welfare and progress of his home city and county and for twenty years he has served as a member of the board of school examiners for the county. His practice is now largely confined to corporation work. and he is retained as attorney and counsel by the majority of the leading industrial and business concerns in Schoolcraft county. In politics Mr. Dunton is aligned as a stalwart in the camp of the Republican party, and he has given effective service in behalf of its cause.
On the 11th of October, 1893, Mr. Dunton was united in marriage to Miss Edith C. Bennett, who was born at Lapeer, Michigan, and who is a daughter of Daniel W. Bennett.
JAMES PRYOR .- For over half a century James Pryor has been promi- nently identified with the affairs of Houghton and of Houghton county, his residence beginning here in 1852. Now practically retired, he can look back over an active and successful career both as a contractor and as a factor in the mining and other business. He is a man of property and has reared a large family of children to good citizenship. Mr. Pryor was born October 4, 1833, in Devonshire, England, and is the twelfth of fourteen children born to Joseph and Elizabeth Pryor. The father was a mine agent in his native country and when he came to America in 1852 he located with his family in the copper mining district of Lake Superior. They took up their residence at Eagle River, Keweenaw county, and six years later the father died in Houghton.
James Rapor
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James Pryor attended the English schools until his sixteenth year. He then worked in mines in that country until 1852, the date of the family's exodus to America. He speedily secured employment as a miner and was advanced in course of time to be captain of the Albion mine. In 1853 he removed to Portage Lake and assisted in locating the new Albion mine at Houghton. He interrupted his career as a wage earner to attend the Gregory Commercial College at Detroit from which he was graduated in 1854, and the following year returned to England where he was married. Mr. Pryor returned to America again in 1857 and resumed his connection with mining affairs in Houghton county. In 1859 he was appointed captain of the Columbian mine and after serv- ing for one year in this capacity he took charge of the Boston mine near Eagle River, Keweenaw county. He was also engaged in the mercantile business at Eagle Harbor until the fall of 1868, following which he spent two years as surface superintendent of the Franklin Mining Company in Houghton county.
In the spring of 1870 Mr. Pryor chose to change his occupation and for the following three years was engaged by the Portage Lake & Lake Superior Ship Canal Company as chief bookkeeper and cashier, holding the position until the completion of the canal, when he assumed charge of the company's business as superintendent. At the same time he served as secretary and treasurer of the Portage Lake & River Improve- ment Company, continuing in these dual capacities until 1892, when the canals were sold to the United States government. From 1892 until his retirement Mr. Pryor was general contractor for the construction of public works and river and harbor improvements at Houghton and on the Geat Lakes and completed a number of important government con- tracts at Sandusky and Lorain, Ohio, and at Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. He also for a number of years conducted a lumber business under the firm name of James Pryor & Son, which is now given wholly over to the management of the son, John C. Pryor. He is also president of the Houghton Lumber Company of Houghton.
James Pryor has always taken a sincere and intelligent interest in all matters pertaining to the general welfare. Although not an office seeker, he is a warm partisan and gives his allegiance to the Republican party. He has held the office of township clerk and school inspector and was the first superintendent of schools in Keweenaw county, evidencing ability in these several capacities. He belongs to the Methodist Episco- pal church at Houghton, having helped in the establishment of the church in 1853, soon after his arrival in America. Mr. Pryor took a prominent part in the golden jubilee celebration of Grace Methodist Episcopal church in 1909, and at the banquet of the occasion gave an "Historical Sketch and Reminiscences." He was one of the earliest members of Mesnard Lodge, No. 79, I. O. O. F., and has filled all its offices.
In 1855 Mr. Pryor was married in England to Emily Warne, who died in 1863, leaving three children: Joseph F. is a dredge engineer; Charles H., deceased, was manager of his father's planing mill; and James R. is a machinist and engineer. Mr. Pryor was again married in England, July 6, 1865, the lady to become his wife being Isabella J. Chappell. To this union four sons were born: Edwin J., a mechanical engineer, died July 7, 1899, at the age of thirty-three years; Reginald C. is a civil and mining engineer; William T., an architect, died in 1899, at the age of twenty-nine years; and John C., manager of the lumber business of James Pryor & Son and the Houghton Lumber Company, of
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which his father is president, and R. C. and John C. the principal stock- holders. The second Mrs. Pryor died in August, 1875, and May 1, 1877, Mr. Pryor married Mary Jane Gale, by whom he has six children : Blanche E. L .; Alfred Tennyson ; Estelle Belle; Francis Courtney Gale ; Ethel Jane; and Clarence Edwards. Except Blanche, who is married to Mr. Ward B. Smith, this last family of children are all at home, the youngest being in his twenty-first year.
After a long and vigorous life, Mr. Pryor is now living retired in good health, at the age of seventy-seven years, surrounded by all the comforts and luxuries that a well regulated life usually produces.
WILLIAM CHANDLER .- The name of Hon. William Chandler is one which bears great weight in Sault Ste. Marie, which for more than thirty years has been the scene of the activities of this brilliant and versatile man. In his earlier capacity as an editor and journalist he would alone have achieved distinction and he has been potently instru- mental in the improvement and general development of lake naviga- tion, the famous "Inland Route" between Cheboygan and Petoskey being his idea. He is one of the chief promoters of the projected St. Ignace and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad and president of the company which fathers it. As a legislator he has advanced and carried to suc- cess measures of incalculable good to the people which have been hailed with gratification throughout the state. He has been endowed with rare executive ability and as one biographer puts it, "There have been few business enterprises, especially those of a public nature, in Sault Ste. Marie during Mr. Chandler's residence there, that do not bear the impress of his efforts, advice and counsel, and it is through these that he will be longest remembered."
William Chandler was born in Raisin, Lenawee county, April 27, 1846. He is of that Quaker stock which has played an excellent part in the history of America, his father, Thomas Chandler, being of the Hicksites, who seceded from the main Quaker body in 1827. He was an abolitionist and his kindly heart and love of justice led him to become an active agent in the "underground railway," by which many slaves escaped to freedom. Young Chandler, like the typical American citi- zen, spent his younger days upon the farm, learning the many lessons of life near to nature's heart. His education was acquired in the Raisin Valley Seminary, a Quaker school situated not far from his home. In 1862 he went to Indianapolis to learn a trade, which step, in a roundabout way, resulted in his becoming a newspaper man. Be- fore he had served out his apprenticeship he found himself in the wholesale paper business. This brought him into contact with various representatives of the "fourth estate" and his twenty-fourth year found him publishing a Republican newspaper in Muncie, Indiana. In 1872, two years later, he returned to his native state to become editor of the newly established Adrian Press, and when the paper be- came Democratic he joined the Adrian Times and remained with that paper until 1875, when he established the Cheboygan Tribune. In 1875-6 he began the work of improving navigation of the inland lakes between Cheboygan and Petoskey at the head of Crooked Lake, and to his efforts is largely due the fact that Sault Ste. Marie is one of the best lighted cities in the United States, its electric light company hav- ing been one of the earliest established in the country. In 1877 Gov- ernor Crosswell appointed him collector of tolls of the St. Mary's Falls Ship Canal, and when, in 1881, the canal passed into govern- ment control he became superintendent and remained in this capacity
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until 1885, when he resigned to give more attention to his business enterprises. Among these was the captaincy of the Sault Ste. Marie News, which he had established in 1878. In 1892 the Chandler-Dunbar Water Power Company was organized by him and he is at present its manager.
Mr. Chandler has been a life-long Republican and a man of deep political convictions. He enjoyed the confidence of the people and was thoroughly in touch with the issues of the day. He had for some time been looked upon as good political timber, but it was not until 1898 that he consented to his nomination for the legislature. During his membership in the lower house he made a reputation as a legislator and it is not remarkable that he was given charge of two of the most important pieces of legislation of the session. The "Chandler Medical Bill," aimed at clandestine medical practice, became a law in spite of the vigorous opposition which was waged against it. Likewise im- portant was the passage of the state tax commission law, pledging equal taxation, which was due to his adroit management.
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