USA > Michigan > A history of the northern peninsula of Michigan and its people; its mining, lumber and agricultural industries, Volume III > Part 56
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Hermansville is the largest town in Menominee county outside of the city of Menominee, and the Wisconsin Land & Lumber Company own and control practically the entire town. Two large saw mills run with little interruption the year round. The company's specialty, however, is the manufacture of the well known I X L brand of hard maple floor- ing. This article is manufactured in a large three-story factory, em- ploying in and about it between five hundred and seven hundred men, and runs on an average of three hundred and ten days every year. This company owns one hundred thousand acres of land, most of it being virgin forest, covered with probably the finest body of maple in the United States, if not in the world. According to the company's estimates it will take them thirty-five years to cut and manufacture their maple stumpage, but a visit to the plant at Hermansville is necessary to give one anything like a proper conception of the magnitude of the company's operations. In the year 1908 they manufactured and shipped more maple flooring than any other manufacturers in America. Besides this central plant at Hermansville the company owns mills and stores at Labranche, Sim- mons and at Blaney, all in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The Blaney plant alone represents an investment of nearly a million dollars, in which is included the Blaney & Southern Railroad, a branch of the Soo Line.
Besides personally directing the management of these various plants, the Doctor is vice president of the Forman-Earle Lumber Company, manufacturers of oak, poplar and southern hardwoods, with mills at Heidelberg, Kentucky. He also owns the Soo Lumber Company with retail yards at Sault Ste. Marie, where a well appointed factory is run to manufacture mill work for the building trade. This company has done a large business since 1903, in which year it was established under the management of Wellington B. Earle, a nephew of the Doctor's, and is probably the largest retail yard in upper Michigan doing a large jobbing business besides the local retail trade.
During the last five years the Doctor has made large investments in western timber lands, for which purpose he has personally visited and
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tramped through the forests of Washington, Oregon and California. He is president of the Earle & Edwards Land & Lumber Company, with holdings in Oregon and branch office in Portland. Has large interest in the Earle Smith Timber Company, with holdings in northern Cali- fornia, is connected with coal mining in Kentucky, with headquarters at Madisonville, that state, where the company own a thousand acres of rich coal land. He owns timber in Arkansas, is a stockholder and one of the original organizers of the Lumberman's Bank in Portland, Oregon, and a director in the First National Bank of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. He is also a member of the board of control of the Agricultural College in the city of Menominee, an institution in which he is deeply interested.
In politics the Doctor has always been a consistent Republican, though his father was a strong Democrat, and from this fusion of politi- cal faiths he has imbibed a broad view on all political matters, accord- ing to every man the right to exercise a free franchise in political affairs. He was made a Mason in 1870, in De Ruyter Lodge in Madison county, New York, he is still a member in good standing in the order, but is now affiliated with the Homer Lodge, where he is also a member of the Wash- ington Chapter of Royal Arch Masons. He is a member of the American Medical Association, of the New York Medical Society, and also of the Association of Railroad Surgeons.
He was married on June 2. 1888, to Miss Emma Meyer, of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. They have a beautiful home in Hermansville, built on a slight elevation that overlooks the vast plant. It is surrounded by green lawns and pretty drives, which are always well kept, and taken as a whole, is one of the most attractive homes in the state. Three chil- dren have come to them, all sons, George Harold, now a member of the class of 1911 in the University of Chicago; Henry M., who died when he was two years old; and Stewart, who is attending the Military Academy at Highland Park, Illinois.
In thus briefly reviewing the life work of such a business genius we can but run the skimmer over the surface, touching here and there the high places. We have aimed to mention enough of his characteristics to establish the truth of our first assertion that the life of the Doctor is well worthy the study of American youth. If held up for example and followed for inspiration there would be few failures in the business world.
One of the most approachable of men, he is not what one would call a voluble talker. He once said to the writer "A man was never hanged for what he didn't say." This well illustrates his motto-"Speak little, but perform well." This motto has been consistently followed through life.
In Shakespeare's classification of great men, the Doctor stands on middle ground :
"Some men are born great Some achieve greatness
While others have greatness thrust upon them."
HENRY A. OSBORN .- The province of Ontario, Canada, has contrib- uted a large and valuable element to the citizenship of Chippewa county, and among the worthy representatives of that province is Henry A. Osborn, who is to be considered one of the pioneers of the county, where he has been actively identified with agricultural pursuits and stock-growing and has contributed materially to the development of these lines of industry in this section of the state.
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Henry Osborn was born in Simcoe county, Ontario, Canada, on the 6th of February, 1858, and is a son of William F. and Mary (Hick- ling) Osborn, both of whom were born in England. The father passed the closing years of his life in Simcoe county, Ontario, where he took up his residence when nineteen years of age. After the death of his first wife he married Miss Mary Wice. Of the three children of the first marriage Henry A. is the eldest; the others are John and Mary Jane. There were six children by the second marriage. William S. Os- born was born in the year 1827, and after coming to America he re- claimed a farm in Simcoe county, where he continued to reside until his death. He was a devoted member of the Methodist Episcopal church.
Henry A. Osborn, was reared on the home farm and continued to be associated with this work until he had attained his legal majority, in the meanwhile availing himself of the advantages of the public schools. He came to Chippewa county, Michigan, and secured one hundred and sixty acres of wild land in Sault Ste. Marie township. For this prop- erty he paid five dollars an acre and the land at present is worth many times that amount. Upon locating on his embryonic farm he erected a lumber shack, which continued to be his domicile until 1895, when he erected his present spacious and attractive house. The other per- manent improvements of the farm are of excellent order and he has shown notable energy and progressiveness in connection with all de- partments of his farm work. His apple orchard has about one hundred and fifteen trees and on the products of the same he has won many prizes in various local fairs, as well as at the Michigan state fair. In 1909 he secured first prize at the fair of the Chippewa County Agricul- tural Society. He has also given special attention to the breeding of short-horn cattle and he has made exhibts of his registered stock at various fairs, including those at Sault Ste. Marie, Canada. He also breeds Belgian type of draft horses and Ozark swine. Mr. Osborn has served as supervisor of his township for the past decade and has been incumbent of the office of county road commissioner for nearly five years. His interest in local affairs has been of the most insistent order and in addition to the offices already mentioned he has been called upon to serve in the position of school director, of which he has been in ten- ure for nine years. In a fraternal way he is identified with Bethel Lodge, No. 358, Free & Accepted Masons; Sault Ste. Marie Chapter, No. 126, Royal Arch Masons; Sault Ste. Marie Commandery, No. 45, Knights Templar; Ahmed Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, in the city of Marquette; Red Cross Lodge, No. 51, Knights of Pythias; Sault Ste. Marie Lodge, Benevolent & Pro- tective Order of Elks; and Pine Grove Grange, No. 1291, Patrons of Husbandry. In the annex organization, Pomona Grange, No. 66, he is at the present time master.
On the 7th of July, 1880, Mr. Osborn was united in marriage to Miss Mary Shurmon, who was born in Simcoe county, Ontario, and who is a daughter of Frederick and Irma (Hopkins) Shurmon, the former of whom was born in Wales. Mr. Shurmon passed the closing years of his life on a farm in Chippewa county, Michigan, and here his widow still maintains her home. Of their six children five are living. Mr. and Mrs. Osborn became the parents of twelve children, of whom ten are living, namely : William L., Henry A., Jr., Emily and Clara (twins), Eva Pearl, Violet, Leona, Louis, Raymond and Gertrude. William L., who married Miss Ella Scheald, is a resident of Canada; and Henry A. Jr., who married Miss Anna Stewart, is also a resident of Canada.
Vol. III-25
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ANGUS P. MACDONALD .- An honored resident of Hancock, Houghton county, Angus P. MacDonald takes a deep interest in public affairs, and is now rendering appreciated service as city clerk, having the confidence and esteem of the community, regardless of party lines. He was born April 11, 1858, on the Isle of Skye, County of Inverness, Scotland, the shire in which his father, Jonathan MacDonald, was born, and in which his paternal grandparents spent their entire lives.
Reared and educated on the Isle of Skye, Jonathan MacDonald was alternately engaged as a fisherman and a herdsman during his earlier life. In 1862 the came with his wife and six children to America, and spent one year in Canada. Coming from there to the Upper Peninsula, he located in Houghton county, and was afterwards employed in dif- ferent capacities at the Quincy Mine until his death, which occurred when he was sixty-eight years of age. He was a Republican in politics, and a member of the Congregational church, to which his wife also be- longed. He married Margaret MacKennon, who was born in Inverness- shire, Scotland, and died in Michigan. Eight children were born of their union, as follows: Donald J., Daniel R., Jane, John R., Angus P., Margaret, Ronald H., and Mary, all of whom, with the exception of Mary, were born in Scotland.
At the age of fifteen years, having obtained a practical education in the public schools of Hancock, Angus P. MacDonald began his active career as a clerk in the supply office of the Quincy Mine, with which he was connected for many years. For three years he was surface boss, afterwards being assistant clerk in the general offices for nine years, purchasing agent nineteen years, and chief clerk one year. Removing then from the Quincy Location to Hancock, Mr. MacDonald was agent for the Equitable Life Association of New York until 1904, when he was elected city clerk, a position which he has retained by re-election ever since.
Mr. MacDonald married in 1890, Lilly Holman, who was a daughter of Peter and Ann Holman, and into their household two children have been born, Florence G. and Laura D. Politically Mr. MacDonald is a Republican, and religiously he is a member of the Congregational church, to which Mrs. MacDonald also belongs, and he has served as assistant superintendent of its Sunday School, of which he is now the superintendent. Fraternally Mr. MacDonald is a member of Hancock Lodge, No. 109, K. of P., being Keeper of its Seal and Records; and of Ingot Lodge, No. 291. K. O. T. M. M.
EDWIN P. RADFORD .- This well known and highly esteemed citizen of the village of Hermansville. Menominee county, where he is now in- cumbent of the office of postmaster and where he is also vice-president and superintendent of the Wisconsin Land & Lumber Company, one of the large and important industrial concerns of the Northern Peninsula, has been prominently identified with the development of this fine upper country of the state of Michigan, where as a young man he was con- cerned in railway surveys through a section that was at the time but little more than an untrammeled wilderness. Few citizens are more thoroughly familiar with the topography and resources of northern Michigan and Wisconsin than is he, and he has long been an influential figure in connection with public affairs in Menominee county, of whose Board of Supervisors he has been a valued member. He has shown un- alloyed enthusiasm and interest in the civic and industrial upbuilding of this favored section of the Wolverine commonwealth, and none is more clearly entitled to recognition in this publication.
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Edwin Phillips Radford was born at Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, on the 15th of February, 1851, at which time that now thriving city was a mere village, and he is a son of Joseph and Frances (Taylor) Radford, the former of whom was born in Birmingham, England, and the latter in the city of London. Both passed the closing years of their lives at Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, where the father died at the age of seventy- six years, and the mother at the age of sixty-eight years. Their mar- riage was solemnized in the city of Providence, Rhode Island, and they became the parents of five sons, of whom the subject of this sketch is the eldest; John W. is engaged in the grain business in the city of Chicago; William T. is superintendent of the Sawyer & Austin Lumber Company, at Pine Bluff, Arkansas; Joseph D. is vice-president of the German-American Savings Bank at Los Angeles, California; and James B. is an extensive landholder and agriculturist in North Dakota. Joseph Radford first came to America in 1844, and he here established his permanent residence in 1849. He twice visited his old home in England after the death of his cherished and devoted wife, and his vocation during the greater part of his active career in America was that of plasterer and builder.
To the public schools of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Edwin P. Rad- ford is indebted for his early educational training, and there he was graduated in the high school when seventeen years of age. Soon after- ward he accepted employment as a level rodman in a surveying party engaged in locating and constructing a railroad line in the southern part of Michigan, and concerning his labors as a civil engineer the fol- lowing succinct record is worthy of a place in this sketch. He was en- gaged on the road referred to for three years, and by close application to the work assigned him he was advanced from time to time until, dur- ing the last year, he had charge of the construction of a division of the Michigan Central Air Line Railroad, which extends between Jackson and Niles, although at the time he was but twenty years of age. Upon the completion of this work Mr. Radford was engaged with a corps of engineers who surveyed and located the line of the Chicago & North- western Railroad between Milwaukee and Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Before the work on this survey was completed he accepted a position with the Milwaukee & Northern Railroad and had charge of the party making the preliminary surveys for this road from Menasha and Chilton, Wisconsin, to Lake Superior. These surveys were made during 1872-3 and the line is now a part of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul system. Mr. Radford recalls that on the 10th of November, 1873. he was in camp on the site of the present city of Iron Mountain, Michigan, and that he walked thence to the Relay house, one and one-half miles from the present village of Ingalls, covering on this trip a distance of about sixty miles. At that time the country north of Green Bay was a wilderness, and the surveying party were compelled to pack their sup- plies on their backs, as there was no other available means of trans- porting the same during their labors covering a period of seven months. While they were thus working through a section that is now well settled they encountered numerous Indians but did not see a white man other than the members of their own party.
During the years 1875-6 Mr. Radford was employed by the United States government to survey the partially submerged lands around Lake Winnebago and the upper Fox river in Wisconsin. In 1878, in the capacity of topographical engineer, he joined a party under Lieutenant McGuire, engineering officer on the staff of General Terry, and as- sisted in making a survey of the Yellowstone river. The terminus of
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the Northern Pacific Railroad was then at Bismarck, in the present state of North Dakota, and to proceed to the scene of the proposed operations the party took a steamboat from that point up the Missouri river to the mouth of the Yellowstone, and thence up the latter to the mouth of the Powder river, where the survey began. This was the country made famous by General Custer's campaign against the Indians two years previously, and only Indians and herds of buffalo were there to be found. During the years 1879 and 1880, Mr. Radford was engaged in the surveying and building of the line of the Wisconsin Central Railroad between Chippewa Falls and Abbottsford, Wisconsin, and after the completion of this work he turned his attention to the sur- veying and loeating of the line of the Milwaukee & Northern Railroad from Green Bay to Lake Superior.
In the spring of 1881 Mr. Radford located at Hermansville, where he became chief engineer and later general superintendent for the Wis- consin Land & Lumber Company, with which he has since been identi- fied. He had a prominent part in the developing of the business of this corporation from a modest inception to one of broad scope and in- portance, and he is now vice-president and superintendent of the company.
In 1882 Mr. Radford was elected a member of the Township Board of Spaulding township, which then included what are now the town- ships of Meyer and Harris, and upon the organization of Meyer town- ship he was elected its supervisor, after having served continuously as a member of the County Board of Supervisors up to that time. He has continued to serve as supervisor of Meyer township by successive re- elections to the present time, and no better evidence of the confidence and esteem of the community could be asked. In 1893 he was elected chairman of the County Board of Supervisors, of which position he has since been the valued incumbent, and he was retained in service as justice of the peace for many years, finally refusing to become a candi- date for re-election. As a member of the County Board of Super- visors he has been indefatigable in his efforts to promote the best in- terests of the county and he was closely associated with George H. Haggerson, of Menominee, in securing the adoption of county roads for Menominee county under the law providing for the building and proper maintenance of the county roads, and he was also one of the most enthusiastic promoters of the establishing of the fine Menominee county . agricultural school, which is the only one of the kind in the entire state. This institution was founded in 1906 and is proving a most valuable addition to the educational system of the county. In 1897 Mr. Radford was appointed postmaster of Hermansville, of which position he has since continued in tenure, by reappointment in 1901 and 1905. He is an unwavering advocate of the principles and policies of the Repub- lican party and has been a potent factor in its councils in this section of the state. For many years he has been a member of the Republican County Committee, and he has been influential in furthering the inter- ests of the party in the various campaigns. He is affiliated with Foun- tain Lodge, No. 26, Free & Accepted Masons, in Fond du Lac, Wiscon- sin; Menominee Chapter. No. 107. Royal Arch Masons; Menominee Commandery, No. 35, Knights Templar; DeWitt Clinton Consistory, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, at Grand Rapids, Michigan, in which body he has attained to the thirty-second degree; and Saladin Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, in the same city. Ile also holds membership in Hermansville lodge of the Knights of Pythias and the local tent of the Knights of the Maccabees.
G. a. Woodford
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On the 12th of May, 1875, Mr. Radford was united in marriage to Miss Kate Hunt, who was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and whose death occurred in October, 1877. She is survived by one son, George, who is now a resident of Fargo, North Dakota. On the 25th of October, 1880, Mr. Radford contracted a second marriage, he being then united to Miss Emma Dahlem, who was born in Wisconsin and whose death occurred on the 23d of October, 1906. She is survived by three chiil- dren,-Frances, who is a popular teacher in the high school in Me- nominee, and Charles F. and Anna S., who are students in that school.
GEORGE A. WOODFORD .- At 612 Main street in the city of Menominee is located the well equipped and essentially metropolitan business es- tablishment of the Woodford & Bill Piano Company, of which the sub- ject of this review is the able and popular president. A man of liberal and progressive ideas and of impregnable integrity, he has gained pre- cedence and definite success as one of the representative business men of Menominee, where he commands unequivocal popular esteem, and he is well entitled to consideration in this publication, which is dedicated and devoted to the Upper Peninsular and its people.
George Alonzo Woodford was born at West Avon, Hartford county, Connecticut, on the 11th of February, 1847, and is a son of Alonzo and Harriet N. (Thompson) Woodford, both of whom are likewise natives of West Avon, where the former was born in 1812 and the latter in 1815. The Woodford family is one whose name has been long identified with the annals of Connecticut, and the lineage is traced back to Stephen Woodford, who came to this country and established his residence in Connecticut in 1637. Giles Woodford, grandfather of him whose name initiates this article, passed his entire life in Hartford county, Con- necticut, where he was a representative farmer and honored and in- fluential citizen. Alonzo Woodford was reared to the sturdy discipline of the New England farm, and throughout his entire active career he never severed his allegiance to the great basic industry of agriculture, with which he continued to be identified, in Hartford county, until the time of his death, which occurred in 1858. His devoted wife, who likewise was a member of one of the old and honored families of New England, was summoned to the life eternal in 1861. They became the parents of two sons and five daughters, and of the number five are now living, namely: Henrietta, who is the wife of Julius Parsons, of Water- bury, Connecticut; Adelaide, who is unmarried and resides in Water- bury, Connecticut; Harriet, who is the wife of Rev. A. Wesley Bill, secretary and treasurer of the Woodford & Bill Piano Company, of Menominee, Michigan, where he was pastor of the First Presbyterian church for sixteen years; and Howard A., who is now a resident of Ore- gon. The father identified himself with the Republican party at the time of its organization, and died before the election of Lincoln. He was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
George A. Woodford passed his boyhood and youth on the old home- stead farm that was the place of his birth, and he is indebted to the common schools of West Avon, Connecticut, for his early educational training. He was but twelve years of age at the time of the death of his father, and his early experiences in connection with the practical affairs of life were those gained on the farm and in a wood-working shop in his native county. In 1865 at the age of eighteen years, he de- cided to seek a new field of endeavor in the west. He accordingly joined his uncle, the late Rockwell M. Thompson, at Kilbourn City, Wisconsin, where he became associated with the business operations of his uncle,
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who was a buyer and shipper of grain. He soon gained a thorough knowledge of this line of enterprise, and his early experiences in con- nection with farm work made him a good judge of the products han- dled. He was finally admitted to a partnership in the business, of which he had the entire charge for sometime. Through this medium he gained his initial success as a business man, and he recalls with a feeling of just pride that when nineteen years of age he won the firm the sum of five thousand dollars in a period of six months as a buyer and shipper of grain. Later he was employed for a short period in the sash, door and blind factory of the firm of York, Munger & Company, of Kilbourn City, Wisconsin, and he then, in the winter of 1866, removed to Grand Rapids, Wisconsin, where he learned the jewelry trade, finally purchas- ing the jewelry store of Jacob Norton, of that place. In the autumn of 1869 he sold the business and on the following Christmas day he estab- lished his permanent home in Menominee, where he engaged in the jewelry business, to which he continued to devote his attention until 1894. In this long intervening period of more than a quarter of a cen- tury he gained prestige as one of the reliable, enterprising and sub- stantial business men of the city, and thus he was well fortified in popu- lar confidence and esteem when, in the year mentioned, he disposed of . his large and prosperous jewelry business to turn his attention to his present line of enterprise, in which his success has been of the most gratifying order. He began operations in the handling of pianos, or- gans and musical merchandise in an individual way, and the business finally attained such large proportions that he found it expedient to for- tify the same in a commercial way by the organization and incorporation of a stock company. This was done on the 1st of January, 1909, when the Woodford & Bill Piano Company was organized, being duly incor- porated under the laws of the state, with a capital stock of forty-four thousand dollars. The company occupy a two-story building at 612 Main street, and here are to be found the best lines of standard pianos and organs, minor musical instruments and musical merchandise. The concern is the largest of its kind in this section and its trade extends throughout the territory normally tributary to Menominee and has now reached a large volume. As already indicated Mr. Woodford is presi- dent of the company and his brother-in-law, Rev. A. Wesley Bill, is secretary and treasurer; the other member of the executive corps is William H. Ounsworth, who is sales manager. Mr. Woodford himself is a talented musician, and for many years he has been a valued and popular figure in connection with the musical life of Menominee, where he has been director of the leading musical societies and where he or- ganized the Menominee brass band, of which he was leader for sixteen years. This band became under his leadership one of the best organi- zations of its kind in this section of the state, and its services were much in demand in connection with public observances and social functions in Menominee and in many other cities and towns of northern Michigan and Wisconsin. Mr. Woodford is one of the pioneer business men of Menominee, and he has ever evinced the most loyal interest in all that has tended to advance its civic and business prosperity. He is a stanch adherent of the Republican party but has never found public office to be in the least alluring. The only civic office in which he has consented to serve is that of member of the Menominee Board of Education, with which he was identified for two years. Mr. Woodford and his wife are both members of the First Presbyterian church.
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